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It was a very quiet month on the stock market, with the FTSE 100 ending June about 1% lower than at the end of May. Our main tech indices pretty much followed suit, with SCS (Software & Computer Services) the only one – albeit barely – in positive territory, so leaving it static YTD (+7%). Anyway, at least it beat Nasdaq!
The top UK SITS performers were mostly relative newbies, headed by the ‘reimagined’ network security firm, Corero (see Corero to do what it says on the tin), up 31%. Much the same was Vin Murria’s Advanced Computer Software, boosted by pleasing FY results (see ACS comes of age). Two troubled players also did well last month. Slimmed down consultancy Tribal rose by 23% as it settles back down after a bid approach (see Tribal ends uncertainty over ownership), while BPO player, Xchanging gained 20% as newly confirmed CEO, Ken Lever, engaged in some heavy duty financial reengineering (see Xchanging simplifies structure via complex asset swap).
Meanwhile, Misys continued its climb (another 16%) as Fidelity revealed itself as a bidder (see here), while hosting player Iomart also gained 16% after a pretty impressive set of FY results (see Iomart sweats more revenue and profit). Iomart were as surprised as we were to be voted as the 22nd ‘world’s greatest cloud company’ (see We’re all Cloud companies now!) by some US blog or other. This was just two spots behind Canadian Sheep Dog Inc, actually a Google apps reseller, which “like its namesake, is reliable, loyal, protective and highly trained to manage the heart of business today”. Don’t you just love it?
At the other end of the stock performance chart was a rather less successful Vin Murria venture, Innovise, which plunged 40% as Murria decided to pull the plug on its AIM listing (see Innovise to join ‘Dearly Departed’).
Outside of the UK, Sopra fell by 28%, but I believe this was the natural result of the spin-off of its software arm, Axway. Among the India-based players, tiny Mastek showed large peers a clean pair of heels, up 18% (and see Kameleon reveals a new side to Mastek). Accenture was the winner among US tech stocks, up 5%, with Unisys the weakest, down 8%. Even Apple eased back 3%, though this still left it 6% up YTD.
