Although we don’t believe in timing the market or panicking over every stock fluctuation, understanding how a business is performing, competing and changing is vital to sensible investment.
What: The share price of Kromek Group (LSE: KMK) — an Anglo-American company that supplies radiation detection technologies to the medical imaging, nuclear, and security screening markets — is up over 10% so far today, following the announcement that the company has signed a number of new contracts.
So What: The US Defense Threat Reduction Agency has awarded Kromek a contract worth $1.45m over the next two years, for the design, manufacture and optimisation of high sensitivity solid-state detectors for the homeland security radiation detection market. In addition, contracts worth $950,000 have been signed with a range of clients, both in the US and around the world, for nuclear detection products. The contracts will deliver revenue from now until the end of the 2015 financial year.
And the UK’s Technology Strategy Board (a government agency aimed at fostering innovation) has granted Kromek a contract worth £150,000 over the next year, for the development of conformal detectors that can be wrapped around or positioned inside regions of interest — eg, breasts, limbs, suspicious packages, parts needing inspection.
What Now: Commenting on the contract wins, CEO Arnab Basu said
“We continue to win new customers in our key markets, highlighting the strength of our technology and the growing adoption of the new capabilities we can offer to partners and customers across the world. We look forward to updating shareholders as to further progress from our strong pipeline in due course.“
Despite this morning’s rise, at 56.9p, Kromek’s share price is still 24% down so far in 2014, versus an essentially flat FTSE All-Share index. However, it’s only down 2.1% since Kromek listed on AIM back in October 2013, although the FTSE All-Share has gained 3.4% ove the same period.
