Friday’s Master Investor Market Report

– The FTSE 100 closed the day at 6,129.98, an increase of 57.51 points.
– The FTSE 250 rose by 32.43 points to finish at 16,796.08.
– The FTSE All Share climbed by 26.52 points to 3,370.66.
– The FTSE AIM All Share finished at 728.96, up by 2.31 points.

Shares in Experian (EXPN) dropped by 3.81% to 1,034p after the credit monitoring firm revealed a major data breach last night. The details over 18 million US T-Mobile customers were hacked and American authorities have announced that they will launch a probe into the matter. The stock was already in analysts’ bad books before the breach, with Shore Capital expressing worries about its Brazilian operations and shifts to mobile.

Electrocomponents (ECM) has said that a strong performance in continental Europe allowed the company to continue growing revenues in the three months ended 30th September, despite North American sales beginning to contract. Management blamed the difficulties it was facing in certain markets on foreign exchange movements, while UK sales continued to stagnate. The shares dropped 4.60p to 175.30p.

Miner Aquarius Platinum (AQP) has received approval for the sale of a second tranche of its Everest mine and processing facilities in South Africa. Local authorities have signed off on the 450 million Rand (£21.45 million) deal with Northam Platinum that includes the disposal of ongoing mining activities. The shares climbed 4.26% to 7.10p.

Online payments and point of sales specialist Universe (UNG) has signed a deal with off licence operator Conviviality Retail worth around £4.3 million over the next 3 years. Universe’s systems will be installed at over 650 outlets starting from November this year. The shares ended the day up by 4% at 9.75p.

Monday’s news today

Bioventix (BVXP) and Waterman (WTM) will post final results at the start of next week.

Quote of the day

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
– Groucho Marx