Market Round Up: Arm is slipping back despite double fillip from Dell and Apple

You can tell it is not a good day on the markets when success is a stock barely moving.

There were a number of reasons for shareholders in Arm Holdings to smile today. Among them was yesterday’s announcement from Dell that the US computing giant will supply microservers using the chip designer’s technology alongside those powered by chips from bitter rival Intel.

Some in the Square Mile were suggesting this could result in extra annual sales of as much as $36 million (£23 million), while scribblers from Investec said Arm was being “increasingly seen as a credible player in this emerging space”.

Bullish comments by Apple boss Tim Cook at a conference in California last night also helped raise excitement levels. With Arm’s technology found in the iPhone and the iPad, any updates on the future plans of the world’s biggest company are seen as good news.

Meanwhile, punters in the Cambridge-based company were being told they could be in line for a windfall, with UBS’s Gareth Jenkins pointing out he believed further cash returns were likely.

Despite all this, however, Arm crept down 1.5p to 505.75p, although with the FTSE 100 plummeting 79.78 points to 5311.36, it was still one of the best-performing blue-chip names.

The benchmark index’s slide, which comes after four consecutive sessions on the rise, was again being pinned on eurozone woes. There were only a handful of risers, with defensive stocks such as water group United Utilities and supermarket Morrisons advancing 8.5p to 650.5p and 1.4p to 274.8p.

The fact that a number of stocks were trading ex-dividend also did not help. Capital Shopping Centres was among those losing their payout attraction and the developer was in last place, dropping 17.5p to 306.2p. There were some rather more healthy moves on the FTSE 250 as an update on Centamin’s plans for its flagship Sukari mine in Egypt saw the gold digger jump 3.05p to 643.7p.

While Booker’s decision to snap up Makro, the UK wholesale business of German retailer Metro, helped the cash and carry group shoot up 6.6p to 85.75p, it was not the only deal being applauded by the Square Mile.

AIM-listed environmental support services company Silverdell soared 1.62p to 11.75p after saying its £15 million acquisition of EDS Group would be “transformational”.

With talk that Maxim Barsky is rejoining TNK-BP as an adviser, dealers noted vague speculation this may pave the way for him to take the top job at the Anglo-Russian oil group. This, they suggested, was perhaps not great news for driller Matra Petroleum, 0.12p lower at 2.42p, of whom he recently became chief executive. However, others have been pouring cold water on the likelihood of Barsky getting the chief executive role at TNK-BP.