Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

 While all of the UK markets have been buoyed by the US move, none more so than the SHAREtrack – sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers – which has risen sharply toward the 6k tidemark, overtaking the FTSE100 for the first time in six months in the process.

The big boys have led the way in terms of value gains this week, with chemicals giant, Johnson Matthey setting a 144p bench mark on positive interims, which was closely followed by Whitbread which added 140p.

The leisure giant climbed on reports in the media that investor Asif Aziz has been secretly building up an 8 per cent stake in the company for more than a year.
Other heavy-hitting climbers included superchip maker, ARM which made up 11 points from the slide it has been on in recent weeks, and software monster, Autonomy which posted record results on the way to a 14 per cent increase on last week.

Risers among the smaller caps include Aveva, which gained 13 per cent, or 110p on two huge contract wins in the Far East and Trans Siberian Gold, which led the index with a 34 per cent gain without an announcement.

Brewer Greene King made strides toward re-entering the Big Ten, gaining 11 per cent after CEO Rooney Anand predicted a wave of consolidation among its peers.
“I think there will be (consolidation) if the debt markets come back and share prices stay where they are,” he told Rueters on Monday.

Another notable climber was PDX platform developer, Pursuit Dunamics, which shot up 19 per cent without word from the company.

Fallers number less than half of the index’s constituents for the first time in many weeks, populated mostly my micro-caps and led by housebuilder, Kier which dropped 56p.

Percentage-wise, the week’s worst performers were pharma, CeNeS, which has yet to find a US backer for M6G, and software firm, Ant which both shed 15 per cent of their value during the week.