Friday tips round-up: Cobham, Aviva, Amec...

Yesterday's full-year figures from Cobham have much to recommend them. Underlying pre-tax profits were up by a healthy 4% to £306m, on revenues broadly flat at £1.9bn, thanks to an improvement in margins to 18.3%.Cobham is also working hard to insulate itself from the ructions over defence spending, in our view, not least via the $175m-worth of acquisitions in the more reliably expanding homeland security market in recent months. Hold says the Independent.Aviva is the world's sixth-largest insurance group and the largest provider of insurance services in the UK. The company has a sizeable presence across most of continental Europe, with smaller units in North America and Asia. Aviva shares currently yield 5.9%, rising to 6.3% next year. This remains attractive and payments can be reinvested to generate even greater returns over time. Buy says the Telegraph.Thursday's full-year results from Amec did nothing to shake the view that it is a solid, growing company with excellent future dividend prospects. The best news for shareholders was that Amec has decided to rebase its dividend by increasing the full-year amount to 26.5p - up by 50% on the previous year. The company's strong order pipeline has also been catching eyes, with analysts predicting that its clients could raise capital spend by as much as a fifth this year. Buy says the Telegraph.Yesterday's sell-off of newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror looks overdone, especially in light of the already-thin valuation prior to the results. This opens the door to some upside ahead as bargain hunters move in. That argues against a sell stance, while the uncertain outlook weighs against too bullish a view. Hold says the Independent.Broadcasters are the first hit by, and the first out of, a recession, but newspaper publishers tend to wait longer for an advertising recovery. Trinity Mirror shares trade on a lowly 3.6 times this year's forecasts, cheap compared with Johnston Press, but any upside may come on the acquisition front only if 2011 mirrors 2010 adds the Times. Psion, which has reinvented itself in recent times as a manufacturer of rugged hand-held computers for commercial and industrial use, issued what by all accounts were sterling results last night. It has swung into a full-year pre-tax profit and increased its dividend. Even better, the company said the improvement in sales that was seen in the second half of 2010 had persisted into the new year, boding well for future performance. Buy says the Independent.Psion plans to launch a low-cost PDA this year, as well as a product based on the US mobile phone technology CDMA that should boost its presence in North America. Growth is expected to come more in the second half of the year, but Psion is sturdier than it has been in years. A run at the 100p level and beyond is possible if investors pick up on the stock's discount to global peers, the Times says.As any casinogoer will tell you, it's always nice to go out on a high. PartyGaming, the online gambling operator, succeeded in that quest yesterday as it reported its last results before jumping into bed with Bwin of Austria to create Bwin.party Digital Entertainment. Since the merger was announced, shares of both companies have fallen sharply over the issue of regulation in countries including Greece, Spain and Germany. But the enlarged group's plans should progressively reduce its risk profile and increase the proportion of regulated earnings. The recent sell-off is overdone and the shares, up 16p to 191p, should make further progress adds the Times.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.