Friday tips round-up: Bovis Homes, Glencore Xstrata, AZ Electronic Materials

17th May 2013 06:55

Stock of Bovis Homes, along with its peers, saw an extraordinary surge in its share price yesterday, up 12p to 765p, almost twice where it was last June. The stock is approaching a 30% premium to their estimated net asset value; this seems to be building in an awful lot of the future growth expected by analysts. "Not a bad time to take some profits," writes The Times's Tempus. John Bond's departure as Chairman of Glencore Xstrata on Thursday shows how fickle investors can be. It is odd how they can take umbrage at some pay packages, such as the ones that Sir John wanted to sign off to senior Xstrata people in the Glencore takeover, and not at others, such as the ones at the banks. And perhaps, after so long at Xstrata, he was not the man to chair the merged mining and trading house. But Glencore Xstrata needs a strong Chairman. A City grandee, in other words. One of the attractions of the merged company, it is being touted, is the almost perfect alignment of the interests of shareholders and management. The first task for Glencore Xstrata's new Chairman will be to ask whether they really are one and the same, writes the FT's Lex column. AZ Electronic Materials put in another strong performance on Thursday, rising by 5% and are now approaching the level they were at before last month's profit warning, which wiped a third off the company's market value. "I suggested that they looked like good value at that level, and so it has proved. Morgan Stanley has just started coverage of this maker of specialist chemicals for silicon chips, saying the shares still look oversold. I agree," Tempus says. Please note: Digital Look provides a round-up of news, tips and information that is impacting share prices and the market. Digital Look cannot take any responsibility for information provided by third parties. This is for your general information only as not intended to be relied upon by users in making an investment decision or any other decision. Please obtain a copy of the relevant publication and carry out your own research before considering acting on any of this information.AB