Technology stock ARM Holdings witnessed a surge in its share price this morning as investors responded to a positive market note from US competitor SanDisk.

Share in the processor-to-software company were trading at 214.4 pence, up 2.5 per cent as at 0945 hrs.

Due to its dominance in the mobile phone market (it designs microchips for 98 per cent of the world’s cell phones) analysts remain broadly positive on the stock, with 46 per cent rating the stock as either a strong buy or buy – read here.

Elsewhere, Aggreko resumed its charge up the table as traders responded to news that it had won a contract for this year’s World Cup in South Africa, its share price was up at 2.2 per cent to 1057.0 pence.

The news was not so good for insurance group Admiral though. Its results, while in line with analyst expectations, did little to impress investors – its share price was down 2.5 per cent at 1233.0 pence.

Group profit before tax was up 7 per cent to £215.8 million from £202.5 million while the number of group customers was up 19 per cent to 2.08 million from 1.75 million a year earlier.

Henry Engelhardt, group chief executive of Admiral, said that the companies two new price comparison sites launched in France and Italy were likely to be key drivers of the company’s group in years to come, despite large set up costs initially.

He explained, ‘It’s not all plain sailing and setting up business outside the UK has its challenges. It takes time and some money to build growing, profitable business.

'However, if I could fast forward 10 years, I’d expect to see these businesses as key drivers of our profit growth.’

BARCLAYS STOCKBROKERS
TOP TEN TRADES
Monday 1 March 2010

Buy
1. Lloyds Banking Group, 11.4 per cent
2. Royal Bank of Scotland, 5.3 per cent
3. Prudential, 5.1 per cent
4. HSBC Holdings, 4.8 per cent
5. Aviva, 4.2 per cent
6. Barclays, 3.8 per cent
7. Legal & General, 1.6 per cent
8. Victoria Oil & Gas, 1.5 per cent
9. Standard Chartered, 1.4 per cent
10. Taylor Wimpey, 0.8 per cent

Sales
1. Lloyds Banking Group, 6.6 per cent
2. Barclays, 5.4 per cent
3. RBS, 3.9 per cent
4. BP, 3.4 per cent
5. Xstrata, 3.3 per cent
6. Tesco, 2.1 per cent
7. HSBC Holdings, 1.9 per cent
8. Kazakhmys, 1.8 per cent
9. Rio Tinto, 1.3 per cent
10. Afren, 1 per cent