Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The stockmarket shrugged off the sell off in the bond markets in both the US and Europe. One explanation is that the rise in yields reflects the prospect of higher rates of growth rather than the threat of higher rates of inflation.

The Sharetrack Index participated in the rally with a rise to almost the 6,900 level with fairly widespread small gains and only a relatively small number of declines.

All the top dozen stocks by market capitalisation rose but the biggest company to rise by as much as 10 per cent was Alizyme, up 16 per cent. whose CEO Tim McCarthy was due to present at the Piper Jaffray’s Second Annual London Health Care Conference yesterday.

Pursuit Dynamics rose 10 per cent over the week after it announced interim results, a loss of £2.7m, but said it expected revenue to be considerably higher in the second half. The best performance was a 30 per cent rise by Tandem.

The board said the improvement announced in May had continued and sales were up 18 per cent on the comparable period of last year.

Ant was the poorest performer with a 19 per cent fall after it issued a trading statement to the effect that sales this calendar year would be below market expectations and the loss higher.

Zenith Hygiene continued its decline with a 15 per cent drop although there has been no announcement since the interim results last month. CML Microsystems fell 13 per cent after announcing results in line with market expectation and saying that it saw an improvement of £1m in the the current year.