Arcontech Group Share News (ARC)

Arcontech, which provides products and services for real-time financial market data processing and trading, said half year pre-tax losses widened but sales opportunities had increased. Chairman Richard Last said, "Although we have not seen any material improvement in sales order inflow in the last six months, we are experiencing an increase in the level of sales opportunities."He added, "Predictability of the timing of order placement by our customers and prospects remains, as ever, difficult to forecast. Despite this we remain positive about the opportunities for Arcontech's products and believe we are well placed to benefit from the improvements seen in the prospects of the overall Financial Services market."Loss before taxation increased to £474,819 in the half year ended 31 December 2010 from a loss of £396,775 before. Turnover for the period rose to £593,358 from £471,945 previously. Arcontech said it has net cash of £1m and expects cash to remain at this level at the year-end. No dividends have been recommended. In a separate statement Arcontech announced it had won a number of contracts for its CityVision "Excelerator" add-in for real-time market data functionality within Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.