Daily Stock Market Report (Fri 3rd July 2026) - CRW, MRK, G4M

Good morning! Please note that US markets are closed today for Independence Day.

In market movements, the South Korean Kospi Index rose nearly 5% yesterday and is up 86% year-to-date. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are together worth more than half of the value of this index, a fact which I only learned this year and which I find terrifying.

While passive ETFs have done a wonderful job of opening up low-cost investing to the masses, they don't prevent - and may actually fuel - index concentration in the biggest winners. I  always thought the S&P 500 was the poster child for this phenomenon, but I was wrong - it's the Kospi!

Overnight market movements:

• The FTSE is up 0.2% at 10,690

• S&P 500 is up 0.4% at 7,500

• Brent crude (September) is up 0.9% at $72.40/bbl

• Gold is up 1.2% at $4,170/oz

• Bitcoin is up 0.2% at $61,700

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Name (Mkt Cap)	RNS	Summary	Our view (Author)
Craneware (LON:CRW) (£501m | SR38)	FY26 Trading Update	FY26 financial performance to be below market expectations, with revenue of US$205-$208 million and Adjusted EBITDA of US$65-$67 million, both broadly in line with FY25. Trading in the final weeks of FY26 was materially impacted by a slower than anticipated conversion of identified 340B opportunities into recognised revenue.	BLACK (AMBER ↓) (Graham) We’ve been moderately positive on Craneware. In hindsight, should we have seen this coming? Perhaps, but I don’t follow domestic US politics very closely. This profit warning seems to reflect the very specific conditions at present, where pharmaceutical companies and the Trump administration are looking at ways around the 340b programme. Craneware’s share price is equivalent to about $16, so the P/E for the current financial year (FY27) is 13x. Given the quality that the business demonstrated historically, I think this could be a fair price - with upside if dramatic regulatory changes do not materialise.
Amaroq (LON:AMRQ) (£389m | SR10)	Update on Intention to Move from AIM to Main Market	Gives notice of its intention to cancel the admission of its shares to trading on AIM. “We believe that a move to the Main Market will enhance our visibility in the capital markets, support access to a broader pool of institutional capital, and further strengthen our platform as we continue to execute our growth strategy.”
Strategic Minerals (LON:SML) (£120m | SR47)	Redmoor - Planning and Drilling Update	Cornwall Council's Mineral Planning Officer has approved planning permission for the proposed expanded drilling programme. Drillhole CRD044 was completed on 25 June. Drillhole CRD044_D1 is underway and advancing.
Marks Electrical (LON:MRK) (£48m | SR73)	Board Change	CFO has informed the Board of his decision to leave the Company. He will continue to fulfil his current role, which will include supporting a smooth transition.	AMBER = (Graham) [no section below] Last year, Marks Electrical lost its CFO of five years. They found a permanent successor in November 2025, but he isn't staying around much longer. Today's announcement is short on detail: he isn't thanked but the departure is said to be his decision, with the implication being that he hasn't been let go. Including their interim CFO, this means that Marks Electrical will soon have their fourth CFO since June 2025. This doesn't bode well for the company's recovery, but I'll leave our neutral stance unchanged nonetheless as the company did have a net cash position when it reported last. If it was already financially distressed, I would interpret this news much more negatively.
Cobra Resources (LON:COBR) (£43m | SR9)	Appointment of Strategic & Technical Advisor	Appoints Stephen McIntosh as Strategic & Technical Advisor to support the advancement of Cobra's Heavy Rare Earth Project through technical and economic studies and accelerate exploration at its Manna Hill Copper Project.
Medpal AI (LON:MPAL) (£18m | SR0)	Placing to raise £5m	Has conditionally raised gross proceeds of £5m at 3.5p (last night’s close: 4p). Proceeds fund the acquisition of Solid State Technologies Ltd, a profitable electronic Medicines Administration Record software business.
Altitude (LON:ALT) (£18m | SR46)	Directorate Changes	Appoints a new CFO designate. He has been CFO, Exec Chairman and NED of Altitude before.

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Backlog

Gear4music (HOLDINGS) (LON:G4M)

266p (£56m) - Final Results (23rd June) - Graham - GREEN =

We never got around to covering this when the results came out last week, so I’ll take the opportunity to do that now.

The highlights are excellent:

The company’s headline is:

"Significant revenue growth, and EBITDA and PBT ahead of recently upgraded market expectations with a confident outlook"

Market expectations for EBITDA are given as £18.1m, so that figure was beaten by just 2%, but the company had already upgraded expectations earlier in the year:

Comment by the founder, Exec Chair and largest shareholder Andrew Wass:

"We are delighted to report that FY26 delivered significant strategic, commercial and financial progress, with strong revenue growth of 30% contributing to an excellent full-year financial performance. Improved gross margins combined with disciplined cost control have driven an 84% increase in EBITDA and a significant improvement in profit before tax, an increase of £8.7m compared with the previous year.

The commercial KPIs for 2026 were excellent: active customers up 22% and products listed up 5%. The conversion rate for the website fell slightly from 1.51% to 1.39%.

FY 2026 was a unique year as two of G4M’s UK competitors went bust: GAK (Guitar, Amp & Keyboard Centre) and PMT (Play Music Today). A European competitor also went bankrupt in Spring 2026.

In those circumstances, and also considering that G4M swooped in and picked up assets from both of the UK businesses on the cheap, it’s not surprising that it had an excellent year. The European competitor that went bankrupt was Bax Music.

Outlook:

Multiple growth-focused technology and systems upgrades launched during Q4 FY26 and Q1 FY27 are performing well and set to yield benefits in FY27… FY27 trading to date in line with board expectations and on track to deliver FY27 consensus market expectations.

FY27 expectations are helpfully provided: revenues of £200.2 million, EBITDA of £16.0 million and profit before tax of £6.0 million.

This means revenues are forecast to rise by 5%, but profits are set to dip lower. PBT in particular is set to fall by 40%, according to these expectations - emphasising for us again the exceptional nature of FY26. There’s also going to be significant spending and costs associated with a new UK warehouse.

Net debt finished FY26 at £5m, a small improvement on FY26. Gross outstanding loans of £13m.

Balance sheet: tangible net assets of £26m.

Dividends: no dividends here and I think that’s fine, considering the size of the business and the opportunity to continue investing in its growth and reducing net debt..

Graham’s view

We’ve been GREEN on this and I think it makes a lot of sense to stay GREEN on this today.

When competitors fail, the benefits for industry survivors are often enormous and long-lasting.

Gear4Music is currently reaping the rewards of survival in a competitive industry: some of these benefits are short-term (buying assets cheaply out of administration) but some will also be long-term (increased consumer trust and pricing power).

I will note that G4M’s own-brand product revenue (up 24%) hasn’t kept pace with other-brand product revenue (+32%). So I think it’s fair to say that the Gear4Music product brand is not outperforming other brands. It does, however, provide G4M with a high-quality revenue source and nearly a quarter of its total product revenue.

Overall, I continue to like the story here.

It has perhaps been ludicrously overvalued in the past:

At the current share price 266p, it’s around 13x FY27 earnings earnings. Given the positives - founder-led, bankrupt competitors, a healthy own-brand product line, and a new warehouse on the way - I’m comfortable with us staying GREEN on this for the time being.

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Graham's Section

Craneware (LON:CRW)

Down 18% at £12.06 (£410m) - FY26 Trading Update - Graham - BLACK (AMBER ↓)

Craneware (AIM: CRW.L), a leader in healthcare financial performance solutions, provides the following update on trading for the financial year ended 30 June 2026 ("FY26").

This sounds like a serious profit warning, exacerbated by the fact that it’s arriving so late in the financial year.

The Board expects the Group's FY26 financial performance to be below market expectations, with revenue of US$205-$208 million and Adjusted EBITDA of US$65-$67 million, both broadly in line with FY25. This change results from the timing of eligible 340B activity and the deferral of a small number of significant enterprise contracts, which are now expected to contribute during FY27. The final reported outcome remains subject to confirmation of eligible 340B activity recognised before the financial year end.

Estimates:

I have access to forecasts from Capital Access via Research Tree (thanks to both).

Previous forecasts for FY June 2026 were as follows: revenue $225.7m, adj. EBITDA $69m.

New forecasts: revenue $207.2m, adj. EBITDA $66.3m.

Unfortunately, it’s not just FY26 that gets cut. FY27 and FY28 also get a substantial trim.

It seems to me that the company’s revenue progress has effectively been put back by a year, i.e. the new FY27 forecast is similar to the old FY26 forecast, and the new FY28 forecast is similar to the old FY27 forecast).

The Adj. EBITDA forecasts get cut too but they aren’t put back by an entire year, thankfully:

In percentage terms, there is an 8-10% cut to the revenue forecast for each year, but only a c.. 4-6% cut to the adj. EBITDA forecast each year.

Let’s turn back to the trading update itself and learn more about what has gone wrong:

Craneware continues to identify substantial opportunities for hospitals to optimise their 340B programs; with outstanding 340B qualifying drug purchases in the region of $500m, however, the pace at which those opportunities translated into eligible drug purchases slowed significantly as pharmaceutical manufacturers further expanded and operationalised restrictions on the supply of certain 340B-priced medicines.

I’ve mentioned 340b many times before in relation to Craneware: it’s the US program that enables hospitals and clinics to get drugs at discounted prices. Craneware’s software allows these entities to track and optimise their 340b spending.

However, it sounds like the pharmaceutical industry, and the Trump administration, may currently be working against 340b in its current form.

Some headlines in the last 24 hours:

Source: healthcaredive.com

Source: statnews.com

I don’t follow US politics all that closely, but from what I can gather, the Trump administration wants to reduce the discounts offered to hospitals. This in turn would reduce the value of managing and optimising these discounts.

The thinking is that 340b is making hospitals rich, not helping sick people. For example, an article in the Washington Examiner last week suggested that 340b was being used to subsidise hospital acquisitions and build healthcare “empires”, rather than directly helping patients.

Here’s what Craneware have to say:

The Board believes that these factors reflect a short-term timing impact to the FY26 results. Looking ahead, customer demand is increasingly extending beyond software and analytics towards technology-enabled operational transformation that helps healthcare providers realise the opportunities identified by the Group's platform. Craneware has been developing these capabilities over the last three years and they now represent a meaningful and growing component of the Group's offering. This reinforces, rather than diminishes, the long-term strategic importance of Craneware's platform within the evolving US healthcare ecosystem.

Graham’s view

We’ve been moderately positive on Craneware. In hindsight, should we have seen this coming? Perhaps, but again - I don’t follow domestic US politics very closely. This profit warning seems to reflect the very specific conditions at present, where pharmaceutical companies and the Trump administration are looking at ways around the 340b programme.

In valuation terms, the new EPS forecasts are:

• FY26: $1.11 (down from $1.18)

• FY27: $1.25 (down from $1.35)

These are modest cuts of less than 10%, and so you might think that the 18% fall in the share price today is harsh.

However, I think that the warning highlights a potential vulnerability to regulatory change, which could become a serious issue.

Craneware’s business, as far as I understood it, was built primarily around 340b optimisation. The reference to the company helping now with “technology-enabled operational transformation” says to me that they are already looking towards a future when 340b optimisation alone becomes much less lucrative.

So I think it’s right to be cautious her.  I’m taking our stance down one notch, as is customary when there's a profit warning, to neutral.

Craneware’s share price is equivalent to about $16, so the P/E for the current financial year (FY27) is 13x. Given the quality that the business demonstrated historically, I think this could be a fair price - with upside if dramatic regulatory changes do not materialise.