Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Over the past week, the SHAREtrack 100 Index, in association with PricewaterhouseCoopers, has risen just over three per cent to top the 6,800 level, a strong move that bettered the rises in the UK and US indices.

The Index is now closing in on the magical benchmark of a clear 500 points lead on the FTSE 100. Just as DSG’s woes contributed significantly to the Index’s fall last week, easyJet (up nine per cent) and Autonomy (up 14 per cent) were the main drivers for this week’s rise, contributing a full 1.1 per cent of the Index’s movement.

But there were plenty of solid improvements across the board, with only one stock, Tran-Siberian Gold falling by as much as 10 per cent – perhaps a reaction to its 54 per cent rise in the previous period. The largest rise was from ITM Power, up 31 per cent after its interim figures were announced. Although losses were up 50 per cent, the company now expects orders and revenues to kick off in 2008, forecasting rapid commercialisation for its alternative energy electrolyser after field trials this year.

Bango was the next best performer with a 23.5 per cent rise after it issued a trading update showing a reduced rate of cash burn and no need for any further fundraising for a year or longer. Revenues for 2006 have been adversely affected by a number of one-off contracts that the company had thought were recurring and by higher than expected churn on content provider packages.

The putative private equity bid for Sainsbury has buoyed up equity markets, with the FTSE-100 up 1.5 per cent, the TechMARK up 2.1 per cent and the AIM market up 2.4 per cent. In the US the NASDAQ and the Dow were both also up a shade over one per cent.