| From UK-Analyst.com: Friday 6th September 2013 IMPORTANT: Are your UK-Analyst emails being delayed? Add UK-Analyst@news.t1ps.com to your safe senders/contact list to help resolve the problem The Markets In figures which are at odds with the raft of recent data which supports the theory that the UK economy is expanding, the UK trade deficit doubled in July from the previous month. According to the Office for National Statistics, the gap between imports and exports for August was 3.085 billion pounds, more than double the 1.256 billion pounds deficit which was recorded in July. A breakdown of the figures shows that this increase in deficit was driven by a plunge in exports to countries outside of the European Union. Samuel Tombs of Capital Economics commented, "Today's trade figures could be an early warning that the economy cannot depend on the strong support that it received from net trade in the first half of the year for much longer." Over in the States, new job figures were underwhelming despite a drop in the unemployment rate to 7.3% - the lowest level since 2008. According to the US Labor Department, employment increased by an unexpectedly low 169,000 last month, dampening hopes of a continuation of economic growth over the third quarter of the year. The figures could cast doubt on what the Federal Reserve will do next month, namely whether it will chose to scale back its massive monetary stimulus programme. Cary Leahey, Senior Advisor at Decision Economics, argued "Even the Federal Reserve would conclude that the employment trend is moderating and for that reason alone they probably will have second thoughts about tapering bond purchases this month." ADVERTISEMENT Get free trading guides from Evil Knievil (How to successfully short stocks), Zak Mir (Top AIM market picks for 2013) and other top financial commentators by CLICKING HERE 
At the London close the Dow Jones was up by 43.31 at 14,980.79 and the Nasdaq grew by 10.43 points to 3,140.37. In London the FTSE 100 was up by 14.89 points at 6,547.33 and the FTSE 250 increased by 70.94 points to 15048.28. The FTSE All-Share was up by 1.55 points at 766.09 while the FTSE AIM Index grew by 1.55 points to 766.09.  Broker Notes Beaufort Securities maintained its "buy" recommendation on budget airline easyJet (EZY) after it announced August's monthly passenger statistics yesterday. The broker was encouraged by the figures, especially given major challenges including unfavourable currency rates, overcapacity and an ongoing aggressive price war. Looking ahead, Beaufort feels that there is a strong possibility of future upside given the impact of allocated seating, efficient pricing strategy, promotional offers, yield improvement measures and further network development. The shares flew by 19p to 1,255p. N+1 Singer stuck with its "buy" recommendation on building materials firm Low and Bonar (LWB), increasing its target price from 69p to 78p. The broker notes the acquisition of Texiplast, a Slovakian geosynthetic business in the civil engineering market for 16 million pounds after a 20 million pounds equity raise. N+1 believes this is a sensible acquisition, in a key target market, in an up and coming country. The shares slid by 0.25p to 70.5p. Cantor Fitzgerald maintained its "buy" recommendation on British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines (IAG) with a target price of 360p. The broker does acknowledge the risks related to events in the Middle East and the profit warning from Ryanair but sees potential at IAG. Cantor is impressed with the pace of the turnaround at Iberia and is confident that profits will continue to recover. The broker lifted its forecasts for 2014-15 by 16% and the shares inched up by 1.8p to 301.2p. 
Blue Chips AMEC (AMEC), the oil and gas services company, has been chosen by TAQA's UK business to undertake the engineering, procurement and construction of modifications to the Tern oil production platform in the northern Northern Sea. The agreement comes after AMEC completed the front end engineering design (FEED) for the project. The site in question – the Cladhan development – is expected to produce around 17,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day with first production projected to commence early in 2015. The shares were down by 7p at 1,050p. Oil and gas exploration group Tullow Oil (TLW) revealed that it has made the first ever oil discovery in the Hoop-Maud Basin in the Barents Sea offshore Norway. The company said an exploration well hit 50 to 60 metres of light oil at a total depth of 905 metres in a water depth of 373 metres. According to Tullow, the find is a result of pioneering techniques which combine shallow seismic and electromagnetic survey data in the search for oil. Tullow now intends to move to drill the deeper and independent Kobbe prospect in the same production licence and will not appraise this shallower discovery. The shares swelled by 37p to 1,070p. Mid Caps PPP Infrastructure investment company John Laing Infrastructure Fund (JLIF) intends to raise between 100 million pounds and 340 million pounds through the issue of up to 218.29 million shares at between 107p and 111p. This represents a significant discount the closing 120.9p share price at 23th August – the last day before the company hinted at a fundraising . The proceeds of this fundraise will be used to refinance existing bank facility and to acquire a new portfolio of three PPP projects for 103 million pounds. Without giving specifics, the firm said that these new investments would be "low, risk, high quality assets to deliver a stable and secure income stream." The shares were down by 2.8p at 113p. Online gaming group bwin.party digital (BPTY) announced that its new partypoker.com website has gone live. This first phase in the shake-up of the website is now available on PC, Mac and mobile. According to Bwin the new site is enhanced by social features and in the coming weeks a new tournament schedule will be launched. Investors will be hoping that the new site will give the company a much needed boost after it conceded last week that full year revenues would come in below expectations as it streamlines its business to focus on regulated markets. The shares grew by 2.5p to 114.4p. Small Caps Cloud technology group Synety Group (SNTY) claimed that it has seen its revenues increase by 30% over the last two months as demand has increased for its CloudCall product. According to Synety, it has seen a "much clearer, very exciting picture" emerging of market demand and potential for CloudCall. At the end of August, Synety had 200 customers, up from 169 at the end of June. The shares were up by 0.5p at 144p. Character Group (CCT) claimed that its performance over the 6 months ended 31st August has been "satisfactory" and as a result, management expects full year results to be in line with expectations. This performance was driven by an uplift in international sales in a trend which management expects to continue as its product portfolio continues to grow. The toy-maker also revealed that the loss generated in the first half has now been reversed. The shares jumped by 6.5p to 145p. @UK* (ATUK) has extended its partnership with payments giant Visa to launch cloudBuy, Asia Pacific's first business-to-business global e-marketplace product. The company's technology will offer cloud-based real-time integrated services in the Asia Pacific region, giving Visa holders a "convenient way to make purchases online in a safe environment." The shares surged by 8p to 46p. 
Emis Group (EMIS), the developer of clinical software, announced that revenues increased by 11% to 47.1 million pounds for the first 6 months of 2013, while operating profit remained relatively stable at 12.1 million pounds. The company explained that the increase in revenues was boosted by a hike in hosting income, driven by incremental EMIS Web recurring revenues. However,, this increase in revenues was matched by an increase in costs, predominately staff costs as Emis plans for the future. The shares fell by 26p to 704p. Recruitment firm Matchtech (MTEC), has agreed to acquire Application Services Limited, trading as Provanis, a technology recruitment business. Emis has paid 4 million pounds for the business and will pay using its current lending facility. In the year ended 31st March 2013, Provansis delivered an unaudited profit from operations of 1 million pounds on revenues of 14.5 million pounds. Matchtech said that the acquisition should generate additional contract opportunities through cross-selling Provanis's expertise to Matchtech's wider client base. The shares increased by 5p to 421.5p. First half revenues at media firm Conexion Media Group (CXM) came in 5% below 2012 levels at 984,000 pounds, while operating losses almost halved to 262,000 pounds. The fall in losses came as a result of a different mix in business and subsequent higher margins. Over the period, the group has signed deals with 18 new clients to date as well as a new production/distribution deal. The shares remained flat at 0.48p. * @UK is a corporate client of a subsidiary of Rivington Street Holdings, the ultimate owner of UK-Analyst. | 
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