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Time to be more cautious on this year’s biggest biotech winners
Thursday 18 Jun 2020Having delivered some of the best performances in the stock market so far in 2020, biotechnology shares have encountered a brutal correction over the last few weeks. Investors might be feeling bruised after seeing in some cases shares losing over half of their values, while on average they have...
Best of the Best’s success attracts takeover interest
Thursday 18 Jun 2020Shares in competitions firm Best of the Best ( BOTB:AIM ) leapt 51% to £12.25 on 15 June after earnings per share more than doubled in the year to 30 April and it proposed a 20p per share special dividend. Two days later the stock soared even further, hitting a high of £16.28 after the business put...
Airlines quarantine backlash as BA owner feels heat over staff plans
Thursday 11 Jun 2020New rules requiring passengers to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in the UK could deal a hammer blow to demand for travel firms in the midst of their crucial summer trading period. The country’s three biggest airline firms – Ryanair ( RYA ) , EasyJet ( EZJ ) and British Airways owner...
Dangers signs from the current share rally
Thursday 11 Jun 2020If someone had said 12 months ago that a deadly virus would infect more than 7m people worldwide causing a global lockdown, resulting in the worst economic contraction and unemployment since World War 2, you probably wouldn’t have expected to see the S&P 500 index trading 12% higher today at 3,...
The story behind a rumoured AstraZeneca and Gilead merger
Thursday 11 Jun 2020Is the global pharmaceutical industry about to see a blockbuster merger? On 7 June Bloomberg reported that AstraZeneca ( AZN ) had approached US from Gilead Sciences, the firm behind the prospective COVID-19 treatment Remdesiver. Both firms have been at the forefront of developing therapies and...
Capex cuts matter to investors
Thursday 11 Jun 2020The coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses around the world and across the industrial divide to pull emergency levers to conserve cash. As most private investors will be acutely aware, a hefty toll has fallen on company dividends, with billions of pounds worth of planned payouts from UK stocks...
Green shoots appear in the IPO market
Thursday 04 Jun 2020The initial public offerings ( IPO ) market is showing some signs of life with two initially successful recent listings. Up until these issues it had been a relatively quiet market with just eight new listings completed, which raised around £455m in new funds. Then on 29 May JDE Peet successfully...
Refinancing risk removed as Micro Focus secures funding
Thursday 04 Jun 2020Infrastructure software company Micro Focus ( MCRO ) has removed its near-term debt funding risk after pushing through a previously delayed refinancing package. The FTSE 100 company announced the deal on 29 May, securing two tranches of dollar and euro denoted funding worth $650m and €600m...
Be prepared for wave of going concern warnings
Thursday 04 Jun 2020UK finance regulators are reportedly braced for a wave of listed companies to issue warnings about their ability to survive the coronavirus pandemic, which could see share prices plummet. According to a report in the Financial Times , auditors have warned there is a backlog of annual reports from...
Are we through the worst of the crisis?
Thursday 04 Jun 2020While it’s too early to say the economic recovery is under way, it’s possible we have seen the worst readings in terms of industrial confidence in Europe and Asia. This week analytics and information firm IHS Markit published its widely-followed industrial purchasing managers index ( PMI ) surveys...