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Hiccups hold back SHAREtrack

Written by Sam Fountain

Friday, 29 February 2008

UK markets have made some marginal gains this week, ending a run of losses that stretches through the whole of February. The SHAREtrack – sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers –has also made a showing, albeit a slightly underwhelmed one, after the BW index was hindered by some rather large hiccups in the region, missing the magic 6k mark attained by the FTSE. Another show of no confidence from analysts has taken yet another of the East of England’s giants – Premier Foods – below the £1bn mark, after Panmure Gordon cut its rating for the company from Buy to Hold, and one of its analysts voiced concerns that the Hovis-owner lacks the cash required to buy forward wheat, thus avoiding the dangerously expensive spot market. Wheat prices have again reached a record high, quadrupling since last year, and the brokerage expressed doubts about the ability of the UK’s largest food producer to pass on the extra expense to supermarkets. Premier’s share price has plummeted almost 20 per cent, or 19p on the downgrade, dragging its market cap below £800k. Elsewhere among the big boys, electronics retailer DSGI showed the best gains of the week, growing five per cent despite a brokerage cut of its target price, pointing out the company’s  susceptibility to the consumer downturn in the UK and Italy. Hospitality industry giant, Whitbread slipped two per cent, joined by its peers in the region’s pub business Greene King and JD Wetherspoon, which both dropped three per cent. Notable fallers among the BW index this week are MMI, which won the wooden spoon by a country mile, after news of a boardroom coup stripped off 39p, or 58 per cent of its value. Trouble at the top also for cleaning products firm, Zenith, which lost its chairman and CEO amid news that accounting troubles had hidden massive losses for the year. More unfortunates this week were drug discovery firm, Sareum which lost 12 per cent of its share value and database security technology company, nCipher which shed six per cent, both without announcements. On the upside, Falklands Islands Holdings led the way with gains of 46p, or 14 per cent, amid rumours involving a number of fields in the Falklands region. The index’s micro-caps had an excellent outing this week, with double figure percentage gains from Tandem, Bango, and Amino Technologies. Healthcare provider, Nestor also presented healthy gains of 10 per cent, as rumours continue that it has been in exclusive takeover talks with private equity giant, 3i for a number of weeks.

 

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