Johnson Matthey, down 3.8%, announced that its 2021 Annual Report and Accounts and Notice of Annual General Meeting are available on its website, matthey.com.
Frontier Developments, up 1.1%, announced that its games label, Frontier Foundry in partnership with Swiss based development team, Okomotive, unveiled FAR: Changing Tides at the PC Gaming Show.
Sareum, up 34%, announced that it has raised £1,470,000, via 30,000,000 new ordinary shares of 0.025p each in the capital of the company at a price of 4.9p per share.
Cambridge Cognition, up 1.8%, announced that it has secured a series of contracts totalling £1.4m from a global pharmaceutical company for digital health and wearable device provision for clinical trials.
Amino Technologies, unchanged at 165.5p, announced that it has partnered with PCCW Media, a leading multimedia and entertainment company, to enhance its Now TV video service offering in Hong Kong. Separately, today the firm announced that it is changing its name to Aferian Plc.
Oracle Power, unchanged at 0.5p, confirmed positive geochemical sampling results from its maiden orientation survey at its Jundee East Gold Project, located in region of Western Australia.
Gaming Realms, down 7.7%, today announced that it has entered into a licensing contract with International Game Technology PLC.
LPA Group, down 2.8%, announced that revenues fell to £9.30m from £10.78m recorded in the same period previous year. The board considered it prudent not to announce a dividend (2020: nil).
Bango, down 2.1%, announced that it has rescheduled its annual Strategy Day, on 20 October 2021.
Kier Group, lost 0.9%, announced that it has been selected by the Department of Education through the Priority School Building Programme Phase 2 to construct two new buildings for The Saint John Henry Newman Catholic School in Stevenage, as well as for extensive landscaping works.
IQGeo Group, down 0.4%, announced that it has been chosen by the US Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) to support their electrical transmission line inspection process.
UK markets ended lower last week, amid lockdown extensions and concerns over rising inflation. On the data front, UK’s consumer price inflation exceeded the Bank of England’s (BoE) 2% target for the first time in two years in May, driven by rise in clothing and fuel prices, while the nation’s unemployment rate fell to an eight-month low in the three months to April. On the other hand, British house price inflation slowed for the first time since July 2020 in April, while retail sales unexpectedly fell in May.
Separately, BoE Governor, Andrew Bailey stated that the UK’s economy is recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, however managing the country’s £1t balance sheet posed the biggest challenge. The FTSE 100 index declined 1.6% to settle at 7017.5, while the FTSE AIM 100 index fell 1.7% to close at 5994.5. Additionally, the FTSE techMARK 100 index lost 0.2% to end at 6768.6.
US markets ended lower in the previous week, after the US Federal Reserve (Fed) raised its inflation expectations and signalled sooner than expected rate hike. On the macro front, the US retail sales fell in May, as consumers shifted their spending to services instead of goods, while the NAHB housing market index fell to a 10-month low in June, amid scarcity of building materials and labour shortages. Additionally, the US weekly jobless claims unexpectedly rose to its highest level in a month in the week 11 June 2021, despite an ongoing recovery in the jobs market.
Meanwhile, the Fed kept its key interest rate unchanged at 0.25% and indicated a gradual reduction of its bond buying programme. Moreover, the central bank projected two interest rate hikes by the end of 2023, citing progress in vaccination rollouts and jobs recovery. The DJIA index fell 3.4% to end at 33290.1, while the NASDAQ index lost 0.3% to close at 14030.4.