Liz Truss’s resignation hasn’t triggered major moves in the markets. The FTSE 100 had edged up 0.27% to 6,943.91 while the more UK-slanted FTSE 250 has risen more, up 0.82% to 17,398.93, but that’s still not a huge rise. Gilt yields also haven’t changed much, edging down 0.008 percentage points to 3.86%. The biggest move was a rise in the pound, up 0.95% at 1.13.

In today’s movers we look at why one of the UK’s few remaining large tech stocks has jumped 7% today, and we also cover a good day for the oil sector.

The oil price has risen today on news that China is considering relaxing some of its COVID restrictions. Brent Crude is currently up 1% at $93.33. Harbour Energy (HBR) has benefitted with a 2.5% rise to 381.3p. BP (BP.) also rose, up 1.2% at 460.95p, while Shell (SHEL) closed at £23.21p, a 2.1% rise.

The other issue here is the possible imposition of a windfall profits tax on the oilies by the UK government. Some investors may think the chances of such a levy may have fallen after Liz Truss’s resignation, but there’s still a large black hole in the government’s finances, and a windfall tax would a relatively painless way to raise extra cash.

As for Harbour, it’s a mid-sized oil company that’s largely a North Sea producer. It’s not encumbered with too much debt and it’s hedged some of its production at prices around $80 until 2025. In other words, it’s taken out an insurance policy against falling oil prices for the next two or three years, although that insurance doesn’t cover all of its production. That said, Harbour could be hard hit in 2025/6 if the oil price is a lot lower than today’s $93.33.

Shares in Darktrace (DARK) have soared 8.5% today to 365.6p after analysts at Bernenberg set a new £6 price target for the cybersecurity firm.

Darktrace listed on the London market in April 2021 at 250p a share, and the share price has been all over the place since then. With a £2.5 billion market cap, the company’s fans see Darktrace as one of the UK’s few high-tech success stories. Sceptics point to a high valuation and intense competition from the likes of Crowdstrike (CRWD) in the US.

Let’s look at the positives: cybersecurity is a fast-growing market with lots of potential. And Darktrace’s technology is clever. It uses Artificial Intelligence so that its systems are constantly learning from previous cybersecurity breaches. Cybersecurity should also be a pretty ‘defensive’ business – you’d imagine that most Darktrace customers won’t want to cut cybersecurity spending - even in a recession. Just remember Darktrace’s share price has been very volatile and that may continue.

The fund management company Jupiter Fund Management (JUP) said today that recent performance was better than expected and the shares have soared 9% to 96.2p. Jupiter revealed that the net outflow figure for the quarter was £600 million, better than the expected £800 million. (In other words, withdrawals from Jupiter funds were £600 million greater than payments in.) Jupiter also said there had been a significant new mandate from a large sovereign wealth fund.

The good news doesn’t stop there: new CEO Matthew Beasley is shaking things up with plans to close, merge or reposition a quarter of Jupiter’s current funds. Most of these funds are small, with less than £100 million under management. This move should reduce costs.

So it looks like management is doing the right things but the long-term outlook for Jupiter still isn’t great. Jupiter is an active fund manager – in other words, all of its funds are run by expensive City fund managers who pick stocks for their fund or funds. The long-term trend is away from active funds to passive funds where the fund picks all the stocks in a particular index like the FTSE 100. That’s a big problem for Jupiter which isn’t going away. 

Synthomer (SYNT), a speciality chemicals company, has announced that its banking syndicate has agreed to relax debt covenants until the end of 2023. This gives the company some headroom to operate successfully over the next year. The share price is up 5.8% at 99p.

The rising pound has hurt AstraZeneca (AZN) as the pharma giant makes a lot of its money in the US. A weaker dollar means that US revenue translates into lower sales in sterling. Shares in Astra closed down 1.5% at £99.65. Other fallers hit by the same problem include fellow pharma giant GSK (GSK), down 1.1% at £13.66, and drinks company Diageo (DGE), down 1.6% at £36.01.

Investors in companies like AstraZeneca shouldn’t get too hung up on these kinds of currency moves. If you focus too much on currencies, you’ll trade too frequently and that’s an easy way to lose money. If AstraZeneca is genuinely an well-managed business with a strong drugs pipeline, the share price will do well regardless of currency moves. Focus on the business, not on currencies.

Shares in Dechra Pharmaceuticals (DPH) are down 2.8% at £25.35p after the veterinary drugs company announced that first-quarter trading was behind the same period a year earlier. In spite of this fall, the company is confident that it can meet analysts’ current revenue and profit for this year. Today’s share price fall tells us that the market isn’t convinced.

Dechra’s decline may be explained by the pandemic. A year ago, many people were stuck at home spending more time with their pets and perhaps more money too. Until this year, Dechra was a stock market darling that had grown fast by acquisition. But things have changed in 2022 and the share price has almost halved this year. Yet even after that fall, it’s still trading on over twenty times earnings. That looks too high given the background of uncertainty.

Trifast (TRI) has warned that this year’s profits will be 10% below current market expectations. The industrial fastenings company blamed ‘inflationary pressures’ for the news. In other words, costs are rising, and Trifast is struggling to pass on those higher costs to its customers. As a result, Trifast’s share price is down 7.5%% at 66.4p.

Trifast’s valuation looks on the cheap side at first glance, but this is a company with a chequered track record and there are probably better bargains elsewhere.

Luceco (LUCE) is another stock to be hit by a profit warning today. The LED lighting manufacturer said today that adjusted profit for this year would come in at around £21 million, below current expectations. Apparently Luceco’s customers are ‘destocking’ more than the company expected. The share price closed tonight at 67.1p, down 9.3%.

Now take a look at our weekly share tips