Daily Mail

Peso pain for Mobile Streams

- By Geoff Foster

THE collapse of the Argentine peso, which on Friday had its worst one-day trading session since the country’s 2002 financial crisis, had shareholde­rs of AIM-listed Mobile Streams crying their eyes out.

The London-based mobile content firm generates 85pc of its revenues in the country, and so any untoward or detrimenta­l movement in the peso on forex markets always sets alarm bells ringing.

They certainly rang out loud and clear yesterday, and the shares crashed 24.25p or 38pc to 39.75p after the group warned the devaluatio­n of the peso meant it no longer expected to meet market expectatio­ns for the year ending June 2014.

Founder, chief executive and major 28 pcs-hare holder Simon Buckingham attempted to soften the blow, saying: ‘The performanc­e of Mobile Streams once again continued to improve with growth in revenues and cash. This was driven by solid growth of around 50pc in the company’s Mobile Internet active subscriber base in the Latin America region, which surpassed 4m. Once the currency situation has stabilised, the company will provide further guidance to the market.’

The Turkish central bank’s bold decision to lift its key interest rate to 12pc from 7.75pc and the one-week lending rate to 10pc from 4.5pc gave blue chips an early boost. It wasn’t long before the Footsie was showing a gain of 45 points, but it then hit the wall and drifted lower to close 28.05 points off at 6,544.28.

Neurotic traders took money off the table anticipati­ng that the Federal Reserve will trim stimulus by a further $10bn this month, which would bring total bond purchases down to $65bn a month.

Copper miner Antofagast­a, or ‘Fags’ as it is affectiona­tely known in the City, topped the Footsie leader board with a rise of 50p to 872.5p. Buyers dug in following a strong quarterly production report and record output.

Randgold Resources rallied 130p to 4235p on news that its Loulo-Gounkoto gold mine in Mali is likely to revise upwards its production target for 2013.

Satellite TV group BSkyB fell 22.5p to 844.5p on nervous selling ahead of today’s second-quarter figures.

A Berenberg recommenda­tion ahead of full-year results on February 27 helped Howden Joinery put on 13p to 333.7p. The group, which supplies builders with stock to install kitchens, has a strong balance sheet with net cash offering potential for higher shareholde­r returns. The broker’s target price is 390p.

Profit-taking in the wake of a good first- quarter trading update left private wealth manager Brewin Dolphin 9.3p lower at 293p. Total funds under management stands at £36bn, up 3.2pc from September.

Sellers dragged publisher Trinity Mirror down 11p to 160p. Sentiment has taken a knock after former Sunday Mirror journalist Dan Evans admitted phone hacking.

Following the award of a new, ten-year outsourcin­g contract with Lloyds Banking Group, Communisis rose 3.25p to 66p.

Real Estate Investment Trust McKay Securities climbed 7p to 198p after raising £86.7m via a placing and open offer of 45.8m new shares at 189p a pop. Funds raised will help the business grow through the redevelopm­ent of existing properties, acquisitio­ns and to accelerate existing portfolio refurbishm­ent. An independen­t valuation of its portfolio carried out on January 17 reported a value of £236.3m, a surplus of 1.4pc from the end of September 2013.

CPP Group, the York-based credit card insurer, which had its collar felt by the FSA for overstatin­g the risk of identity theft when selling insurance for that purpose, rose 2.75p to 14.38p. Duncan McIntyre has been appointed chairman to replace Charles Greg- son, who announced his intention to step down in December.

Fusionex Internatio­nal jumped 90p in a thin market to 675p after announcing it has secured its first customer for Giant, its innovative Big Data Analytics software. The customer has global operations in the travel, leisure and hospitalit­y sector. The contract is a multi-million- dollar deal over five years, with a subsequent option for renewal.

The bullish tenor of chairman Roy Harrison’s AGM address helped engineerin­g services company Renew climb 18.5p to 201p. He told shareholde­rs: ‘Trading for the first quarter of the year has been strong and well ahead of the comparativ­e position last year. The board expects this to continue through the second quarter.’

North River Resources gained 6.7pc to 0.64p after raising £1m from new and existing shareholde­rs. Cash raised will be used to develop its brownfield Namib LeadZinc Project towards production in the near term. DESPITE an impressive turnaround in annual profits driven by strong growth in the education recruitmen­t business, Servoca fell 12pc to 7.25p. Net debt decreased to £3.07m at the end of September 2013. Broker FinnCap forecasts a 10pc increase in revenues for 2014, resulting in a significan­t increase in profitabil­ity to £1.1m, giving earnings per share of 0.73p, up 30pc. Its price target is 13.5p.

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