Daily Stock Market Report (Thur 2nd July 2026) - CNC, TRI, CURY, PIN, LTHM, AOM

Aside from football, there isn’t much overnight news. On the football front, I’m curious to know how many of you will be staying up on Sunday night to watch the Mexico match - is it too late to declare Monday a Bank Holiday?

As there is little news, let’s take a moment to see how my 2026 watchlist performed in H1.

• Mortgage Advice Bureau (Holdings) (LON:MAB1): total return minus 22.9%

• Hostelworld (LON:HSW): minus 9.3%

• Cavendish (LON:CAV) minus 8.8%

• Mercia Asset Management (LON:MERC) minus 8.5%

• Peel Hunt (LON:PEEL) minus 2.4%

• Nichols (LON:NICL) +2.0%

• B.P. Marsh & Partners (LON:BPM) +5.3%

• PayPoint (LON:PAY) +23.2%

• CMC Markets (LON:CMCX) +53.2%

• Polar Capital Holdings (LON:POLR) +67.5%

I think this gives an average result of 9.9%, highly concentrated in the top three names.and slightly better than the FTSE All-Share (7.2%).

But if I’m allowed to cherry-pick slightly, I’d also point out that Polar’s year-to-date return improved to +74.6% yesterday, while CMC improved all the way to 117% - so it was an exceptionally nice start to H2! Unless my sums are wrong, the average year-to-date return as of last night was 17.4%.

Overnight market movements:

• The FTSE is down 0.1% at 10,470

• S&P 500 is unchanged at 7,490

• Brent crude (September) is down 1.2% at $70.90/bbl

• Gold is up 0.8% at $4,060/oz

• Bitcoin is up 0.9% at $60,650

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Thanks everyone! That's all for today.

Spreadsheet accompanying this report: link.

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Companies Reporting

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Graham's Section

Trifast (LON:TRI)

Down 2% at 68.9p (£94m) - Final Results - Graham - AMBER =

We have FY March 2026 results from Trifast, “the international specialist in the design, engineering, manufacture, and distribution of high-quality engineered fastenings”.

At the trading statement in February, I was neutral, due to a perceived lack of growth, with shrinking revenues and a track record of very average economic returns.

The share price is lower since February and the market doesn’t seem terribly impressed with these full-year results, so maybe my first impressions of the stock were reasonable?

Quick overview of FY26:

• Revenue fell 7.3% at constant exchange rates “as anticipated, reflecting softer market demand alongside the strategic decision to focus on the quality of revenue.”

• Gross margin improves from 28.3% to 30%.

• Underlying EBIT up 9% to £16.3m.

ROCE comes in at 8.5%, improved from 8.1% the prior year.

This is higher than Stockopedia’s calculation from the statutory numbers:

Regardless of whether a fair ROCE number is 5-6% or 8.5%, it’s clear that these are fairly ordinary returns - and in the ballpark what you might expect from a company that designs, engineers and manufactures “industrial fastenings”.

Pics from their product page:

Statutory numbers

The actual PBT result is only around breakeven at £0.1m, despite an "underlying" PBT of £12m.

This is due to c. £12m of "separately disclosed items”, i.e. adjustments to the accounts.

Of these, by far the biggest is £6m spent on something called Project Ignite: “the implementation of the Group's cloud-based ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics 365.”

There’s another £2.4m on “restructuring and transformation costs”. The previous year, there were £2.6m of such costs.

Another big item is a £1.4m write-off after the company ceased manufacturing in Malaysia.

Trifast has also been losing money to something called “facilitation payment fraud”. I believe that a facilitation payment is a form of bribery - has Trifast been fraudulently induced to make such payments?

Overall, the level of adjustments to these accounts is very high.

In general, I do not allow companies to adjust out their ERP software costs or their “restructuring and transformation” costs, as these types of costs seem to occur every few years, or even every year in some cases. I see them as a normal cost of running a business, not an exceptional cost, and I'm frankly a bit sick of companies telling us that they are exceptional.

The only compromise I’d be willing to entertain is to maybe spread out the cost of a very large ERP software expense over more than one year. So if you really wanted to spread out the “Project Ignite” costs over a few years, rather than putting them all in a single year, I could go along with that.

Outlook sounds fine:

The Group enters FY27 with improved operational and financial strength, structurally stronger margins, enhanced earnings visibility and a clear path back to profitable top-line growth, focused on key growth regions of North America and Asia.

Positive momentum has continued into FY27, with the commercial pipeline the strongest since the strategy was implemented.

Looking further ahead, “The Board remains confident in achieving the Group's medium-term EBIT margin target of >10%, underpinned by structural improvements in efficiency, mix and pricing.”

EBIT margin for FY26 was 7.8%, up from 6.7% the prior year.

CEO comment:

We are delivering what we said we would do: improving EBIT margins through disciplined, sharper execution and focused strategic change.

FY26 demonstrates that the Rebuild phase is working. We grew profits and expanded margins in a softer revenue environment, reflecting a deliberate focus on quality of revenue over volume.

Graham’s view

I have zero criticism of anything I’ve read here, in terms of what management are attempting to do strategically: focusing on the quality of revenues, and using EBIT margin and ROCE and their key performance indicators.

I’m just not convinced that this stock deserves to trade at a much higher earnings multiple than it already does, given the type of business that it is:

If the results were completely clean, I might be able to take a mildly positive view. And for future reference: if we see really clean profits in H1 or at the next full-year results, I should consider that. I'll keep a close eye on the "separately disclosed items", as always.

For now, however, I’ll stay neutral on this Super Stock. The algorithms like it more than I do:

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James's Section

Concurrent Technologies (LON:CNC)

Up 1.3% at 271p (£232.7m) - Concurrent Technologies secures $9.4m order from US Defence Prime Contractor - James - Amber

Concurrent’s announcement of a $9.4m US defence production order pushed the stock into positive territory for the day. The order – its share price up around 1.8% at the time of writing – adds to a circa £17m, four-year European defence contract announced on 11 June to supply over 3,400 VME-based computer board units for ground-based air defence systems.

Both these announcements follow a strong set of full-year results, where revenue rose 14% to £45.9 and pre-tax profit up 25% to £6.5m. The company said it was confident of delivering results in line with market expectations for FY26 – Cavendish have forecasted revenue at £52m and EPS of 7.8p.

A broader look at the business's performance since the turn of the decade is very reassuring. Revenue has grown from £21.1m in 2020 to £45.9m in FY25. The consensus forecast sees that figure hitting £59.7m by FY27. Over the same period, net profit has shifted from £2.75m to a projected £8m.

This is the type of growth that investors are willing to pay handsomely for… and that’s exactly what’s happening here. The stock is trading at 45.5x earnings from FY25, and the projected earnings see that figure fall to 36.6x for FY26 and 29.3x for FY27. Coupled with a PEG ratio of 1.48, there’s no clear value signals.

Living up to the valuation

Can it satisfy the valuation? This is the million dollar question. Let’s take a closer look at the business.

Concurrent designs and manufactures rugged embedded computer technology – hardware built to survive extreme environments and combat conditions. Unsurprisingly, defence is by far the company’s largest segment, representing 89.9% of sales, and its customers include some of the largest primes including Raytheon, MBDA, and BAE Systems.

Interestingly, its largest customer represents 13% of sales, and its second largest at 6% – this suggests sales aren’t overly concentrated as they can be in the defence sector.

Source: FY25 Report

Once a customer designs Concurrent's hardware into a programme, it typically stays there for that programme's life – often seven to ten years. That's the source of the group's order visibility: FY25's design wins alone carry an estimated £145m of lifetime value, work that hasn't been booked as revenue yet but is expected to convert over the coming years. Record order intake of £47m in FY25, plus the two contract wins since the year-end, suggest that pipeline is still growing rather than plateauing.

Source: FY25 Report

However, the margin picture tells a two-speed story. Group gross margins rose to 53.3% in FY25, driven almost entirely by Products, which runs a 57% gross margin. The Systems business is the drag: its gross margin sits at just 16% (up from -7% in FY24) and it posted an operating loss of £0.3m.

It’s the Systems business that offers a lot of the company’s potential, however. Systems revenue rose 160% in FY25 although profitability was delayed due to slower than anticipated contracting. It’s a “watch this space” type thing.

Another factor in the company’s favour is the balance sheet: £14.4m in net cash and no debt, giving management room to keep investing in Systems and new facilities without needing to raise equity.

James’s view

Concurrent's order book and margin trajectory both point the right direction. What’s more, today's contract win is more evidence the pipeline keeps converting rather than plateauing. The margin picture is also largely positive, with the 14.1% operating margin ahead of the industry average according to Stockopedia data.

However, at 45x trailing earnings and a PEG above 1, the market has already given the company credit for a lot of this and potential catalysts look to be priced in –Systems reaching profitability and more design wins continuing to convert at pace are now expectations

I'll keep Concurrent at Amber: a well-run, genuinely growing business, but not one I'd chase at this price without evidence the next leg of growth is landing.

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Currys (LON:CURY)

-1.5% at 161.2p (£1.79bn) - Building an ever-stronger Currys (FY26 Results) - James - AMBER ↓

Currys shares fell 1.5% today despite an 18% rise in adjusted pre-tax profit to £191m. This isn’t an unfamiliar story to those of us who watch the market closely – the stock has surged approximately 30% since early March and investors seemingly wanted more to keep that bull run going.

The results reaffirmed that this is a business on the right track. Revenue rose 6% to £9.3bn with like-for-like sales up 4%. Adjusted EBIT rose 13% to £255m and adjusted EPS rose 19% to 13.4p. Both divisions grew: UK&I gained 60bps of market share in a market that actually shrank 1.3%, while the Nordics delivered EBIT growth of 26% (currency-neutral) on revenue growth of just 6%.

Beyond core electronics, iD Mobile subscribers grew 18% to 2.6m, credit sales rose 10% to £1.2bn, and Services revenue grew 7%.

Currys also announced that it’s launching a new £50m share buyback (via Panmure Liberum, cancelling all shares bought), immediately following the successful completion of its previous £50m programme on 2 April 2026.

The broader picture

The company has delivered improving results since a post-pandemic nadir around 2024. Since then, revenue has risen from £8.5bn to the £9.3bn posted today. Forecasts point to that figure hitting £9.6bn in FY27. Net profit has been very irregular, but a growth pattern could be emerging with analysts pointing to FY27 net profit of £150m, up from £108m in FY25.

However, as the data suggests, there’s certainly not enough evidence to call Currys a consistent compounder yet.

The broader irregularity of the numbers represents a few things. Firstly, Currys sold its Greek and Cypriot operations to Public Power Corporation in April 2024 for £175m – it contributed £637m of sales in FY23.

The wider environment was also quite weak after the pandemic. People had already bought laptops, TVs and home-office kits during the pandemic, so demand normalised down hard. This was compounded by the UK and Nordic cost-of-living squeeze hitting discretionary electronics spending specifically.

Source: FY26 Results

What’s the business really worth?

Shares are up over 300% over three years. It’s a spectacular turnaround story. Of course, these bull runs don’t go on forever – even “king of the turnaround” Rolls-Royce has plateaued in recent months.

I think there’s cause to look a little more critically at the proposition Currys presents. My take: it’s a mixed bag. Some positive signs, some less positive signs.

It's currently trading at 11.8x forward earnings, around average for the industry. But the business carries more debt than the headline suggests: Currys highlights net cash of £176m, but that figure excludes lease liabilities. Once those are included, the group sits at a net debt position of £764m – a very different picture, and one that needs factoring in. On that basis, I don't think the headline PE makes this look particularly cheap.

Earnings growth is fine, but still relatively modest. Analysts are projecting 6.4% growth going into FY27 which points to a PEG ratio of 2. That said, it outperforms on other valuation metrics such as price-to-book (0.8) and price-to-free-cashflow (5.1x).

Then we need to consider the margins. Retail doesn’t generate big margins, we know that, but Currys’ 2.35% operating margin is slightly below the market average, according to Stockopedia data. Margins like this will put a cap on the multiple investors are willing to pay. It's still a low-margin, high-volume retailer at heart, selling low-differentiation electronics in a category prone to price wars and thin gross margins. Growth alone doesn't change that; it just means more revenue flowing through the same tight margin structure.

The dividend yield is modest, but a possible growth area. The forward yield sits at 1.7%, but with coverage at nearly 5x, there’s scope for Currys to raise payments and potentially attract dividend investors even at this more elevated price.

James’s view

To me, the data suggests that this is a business that’s edging towards fair value. Analysts appear to agree. While there are 4 Strong Buys, 3 Buys, and 1 Hold on the stock, the share price target is 8.5% above the current price, implying a limited margin of safety. I’m by no means bearish on Currys, however, looking at the valuation picture coupled with broader macroeconomic observations – let’s be honest, this economy certainly isn’t flying despite the AI revolution – I think it’s prudent to turn Amber