3:00pm: No shortage of small cap movers
With around an hour and a half to Thursday’s close there was no shortage of big movers in the small cap market.
Physiomics Plc (LON:PYC) continued to be the standout, up around 135% to 22.5p.
North Sea oiler Serica Energy Plc (LON:SQZ), meanwhile, shot up 131% to 64p. After that, Pathfinder Minerals Plc (LON:PFP) and Quadrise were 65% and 45% higher.
Bushveld Minerals rose 20% to 9.14p and Zoltav Resources Inc (LON:ZOL) gained 17.6% to 15p.
1:30pm: Quadrise, Bushveld Minerals and PureTech Health among Thursday's small cap movers
Quadrise Fuels International Plc (LON:QFI) jumped more than 40% on news of a tie-up with Japanese engineering contractor JGC Corporation.
Junior miner Bushveld Minerals Limited (LON:BMN) advanced 23% after announced a buy-out deal to take full ownership (taking another 55%) of the Bushveld Vametco unit – it was described by the company as a ‘transformational’ acquisition.
ITM Power (LON:ITM) climbed 15% to 39.5p as the energy storage and clean fuel company said its deal pipeline increase £5.9mln in the two months since raising £29.4mln from investors.
The business now has £20.2mln of projects under contract and a further £22.4mln of deals in the final stages of negotiation.
PureTech Health Plc (LON:PRTC) shares were up 5%, changing hands at 130.5p, after the group’s associate had an oversubscribed US$40mln equity funding round.
Midday: Coco Pops boost for OptiBiotix
So Kellogg's is to cut the amount of sugar in its three top-sellers - Coco Pops, Rice Krispies and Rice Krispies Multi-Grain Shapes - by 20-40%. It’s also said it will also stop selling Ricicles and end on-pack promotions aimed at children on Frosties.
The move comes amid pressure on food firms to cut sugar levels to combat obesity. This will be music to one of AIM’s most innovative companies – OptiBiotix Health plc (LON:OPTI).
It is developing natural sweet prebiotics that can be used to replace sugar in food and drinks. These may be classified as dietary fibres, which from an industry and consumer perspective, creates the prospect of substituting high-calorie sugars with sweet, healthy fibres.
Proactive had a natter with Opti’s boss Stephen O’Hara, who told us: “With growing consumer interest in healthy lifestyles public interest and political concerns over traditional sugars and artificial sweeteners OptiBiotix is leading research in an area of growing industry interest.”
11:00am: Daily Mail slumps, clutch of junior oil rise
Daily Mail and General Trust Plc (LON:DMGT) slumped 20% affter it warned that advertising revenues are likely to remain “volatile” in the new financial year as it reported a 2017 loss.
The owner of the Daily Mail newspaper and MailOnline posted a statutory loss before tax of £122mln in the year to 30 September, compared to £202mln last year, including impairment charges and exceptional costs related to its reorganisation and joint ventures.
Liberum Securities downgraded the Mail to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’ and moved its target to 765p from 785p.
In the small cap market, Sirius Petroleum (LON:SRSP) was down 20% to account for a US$9.5mln equity placing.
Serica Energy Plc (LON:SQZ) marked a near 120% gain as the suspension on its shares were lifted, as regulatory document s for the company’s North Sea acquisition were sent out to investors.
Elsewhere, Nu-Oil and Gas Plc (LON:NUOG) shares rose 18% after the junior oil firm updated on its Canadian operations.
Medical technology group Physiomics Plc (LON:PYC) continued to soar, rising another 90% on Thursday, to mark a 1,700% rally for this past week.
9:30am: Marstons soars while Greene King moves lower
Two of London’s big pub stocks moved in opposite directions in Thursday’s early deals, with Marstons Plc (LON:MARS) rising almost 9%, to 114.14p, whereas Greene King Plc (LON:GNK) recovered with its opening lows but was still down 3% by around 9:30am.
Marstons, meanwhile, reported an 8% increase in revenue, a 24% rise in pre-tax profit and earnings per share gained 12%.
Greene King said the first half was “challenging” with industry-wide cost pressures and poor weather dragging profits and revenues lower
A deal to revise BAE Systems Plc’s (LON:BA) UK pension arrangements sent the aerospace engineer’s shares 2.2% higher to 556p.
Proactive news headlines:
Bushveld Minerals Ltd (LON:BMN) is to take control of the Vametco vanadium project in South Africa through the buy-out of partner Yellow Dragon. Shareholders will need to approve a reverse takeover that will see Bushveld will pay US$11.1mln in cash and shares for Yellow Dragon’s 55% of their BVL joint venture.
The numbers are really starting to add up for ITM Power (LON:ITM), the energy storage and clean fuel company, which has seen its deal pipeline increase £5.9mln in the two months since raising £29.4mln from investors. The business now has £20.2mln of projects under contract and a further £22.4mln of deals in the final stages of negotiation.
Gold explorer-cum-digital currency group Lionsgold Limited (LON:LION) has raised to £550,000 to help fund its various activities going forward.
MySQUAR Limited (LON:MYSQ) saw revenues jump to US$1.06mln last year in what was a busy period for the Myanmar-language social media, entertainment and payments platform.
Kibo Mining PLC (LON:KIBO) is to acquire a power station development in Botswana to leverage the knowledge acquired from its Mbeya project in Tanzania.
Vast Resources PLC (LON:VAST) has released the final batch of drill results from its recent programme at the Manaila polymetallic mine in Romania, where is it is studying a potential location for a second open pit.
Technologica, Seeing Machines Limited’s (LON:SEE) exclusive partner in the Middle East, has won two major deals for the London-listed company’s Guardian driver fatigue monitoring technology, representing the company's largest single fleet customer deals to date.
Construction of forestry management company Active Energy Group PLC’s (LON:AEG) first five-tonne-per-hour CoalSwitch biomass fuel plant in Utah will be completed next month. Full commissioning and revenue generation will follow thereafter, with the plant providing sufficient CoalSwitch fuel to satisfy existing early-stage demand in Utah and for commercial (paid for) burn testing at full-scale power utility plants
The financial year just ended was a record one for platinum group metals (PGM) producer Tharisa PLC (LON:THS) in terms of production and profitability.
Cadence Minerals Plc (LON:KDNC, OTC:KDNCY) said it had completed the due diligence process on two early-stage lithium assets in which it plans to invest. It hopes to have tied up binding agreements by the year-end with the aim of beginning the exploration process in earnest in the first quarter of next year.
Sound Energy PLC (LON:SOU) has unveiled a new estimate of the Sidi Moktar exploration project onshore Morocco. The explorer told investors it sees potential for up to 11.2 trillion cubic feet of gas within a portfolio of targets – consultant Echo Geoscience Management Ltd (EG) has detailed 28 leads in a variety of play types.
Tower Resources PLC (LON:TRP) has hired contractor DMT Petrologic for a 3D seismic data reprocessing programme at the Thali licence offshore Cameroon. DMT was selected in a tender of six potential contractors. The process will cover some 500 square kilometres worth of data, spanning the entirety of the Thali licence plus the surrounding areas.
Harvest Minerals Limited (LON:HMI) has welcomed news that the Upper House of the National Congress of Brazil has approved a bill to reduce the royalty rates of fertiliser projects from 3.0% to 0.2% which it sees significantly benefitting the group.