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"With the £32bn HS2 high speed rail project in the bag, Tracsis looks incredibly well placed to profit from the undoubtedly fat consultancy fees that could be generated as a result," Lowery reckons. "Tracsis has a very healthy cash balance of £4.7m - equal to a massive 42% of its current market value. It's unsurprising that with such a strong financial performance and solid growth prospects its directors have been buying shares in the company. Late last year, three directors snapped up shares at prices up to 65p," Lowery notes.

The broker, which acts as Nominated Adviser to AIM-listed Tracsis and which should therefore be well-informed about its prospects, has lifted its current year profit before tax (PBT) forecast to £1.9m from its previous estimate of £1.60m. Next financial year it sees further growth in PBT to £2.0m. As house broker, WH Ireland is not an entirely disinterested party, but its "buy" recommendation was echoed by David Lowery, an equity analyst at Faraday Research.

WH Ireland has upgraded its earnings per share forecasts by 15% this year and 14% next. "As expected, rail refranchising activity is buoyant and this underpins demand for Software and Consultancy services. This was reinforced last week by the announcement of a multi-year licence deal with a leading train operating company which will utilise a suite of Tracsis products for its tendering work," WH Ireland's Eric Burns wrote, in a note in which the broker reiterated its "buy" recommendation while upping its price target to 81p.

Consensus figures for the year were £5.58m in revenue, pre-tax profit of £1.41m, and earnings per share (EPS) of 4.40p, but those figures are already being revised by the abacus rattlers at stockbrokers. Broker WH Ireland said the group is "going like a train", with the trading update confirming "strong trading across the piste but the lions' share of this super-performance will likely be at MPEC, the condition monitoring business

The group's condition monitoring business continues to prove popular with cost-conscious customers while the passenger analytics business is performing beyond expectations. McArthur said the out-performance could be attributed primarily "to excellent client management and a sustained sales drive into new markets."

Chief Eecutive Officer John McArthur said: "Due to continued strong activity within our core markets the group continues to trade above expectations. UK rail refranchising activity has been brisk which has bolstered demand for both our consultancy and software offerings."

Investors were jumping on the Tracsis bandwagon after the company raised profit expectations for the second time this year. It is only two months since the software company, which helps transport companies organise their schedules and count passengers, last lifted its profits guidance, but as evidenced by its big contract win announced last week, trading is going from strength to strength.

Fairpoint Group, a provider of advice and solutions to 'financially stressed' consumers, has signed a new enlarged £13m asset-based revolving credit facility, replacing its existing facility of £8m, which was due to expire in December of this year. The facility has a four year maturity, and draws down £4.5m against the existing facility. Annual financing costs under the new facility are expected to be around £0.2m higher than those of the old facility.

Aseana Properties, a Malaysia and Vietnam-based property developer, has posted a 56.8% leap in revenues from $179.3m to $281.1m for the year ended December 31st, helping to turn a loss of $15.4m in 2010 to a profit of $33.1m in 2011. October 2011 saw the completion of SENI Mont' Kiara, the group's largest and most significant project, which along with the sale of several completed properties led to a significant increase in earnings. Earnings per share were 7.56c, compared with a loss per share of 9.51c the previous year.

Ceres Power, a fuel cell technology developer, has formed a new commercial partnership with Itho-Daalderop Group, which will commit technical resources to the Ceres programme for the development of its mass market CHP product, which will be trialled in 2014 and launched in 2016. Under the agreement, Itho-Daalderop has exclusive distribution rights for the Ceres CHP product in the Benelux countries for a period of four years from initial sales, on the condition Itho-Daalderop orders the minimum volume of 78,000 units over this period. The company will also sell the product into the residential mass market within the Benelux countries.

Sinclair IS Pharma, a skin treatments supplier, has amended the terms of the lock-up arrangements with the ex-shareholders of Advanced Bio-Technologies (AB-T), meaning that around 11.478m, or 57%, of the 19.990m shares issued as consideration for the acquisition of AB-T have now been released four months post completion, two months earlier than originally envisaged, with 10,000,000 of these being placed with investors. The remaining 43% will be released on December 15th, as per the original agreement.

Following the inspection of Ark Therapeutics' manufacturing site, Finnish Medicines Agency has extended Ark's Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certification to include the company's newest and largest production facility, GMP 3. The certification will ignificantly increase the company's manufacturing capacity, Ark said, including an automated "fill and finish" line capable of handling up to 2,000 product units/hour. It is the first ever facility to receive regulatory approval to manufacture adenoviral gene-based medicines for commercial supply in Europe.

Vislink has traded profitably and in line with management expectations for the quarter ended March 31st 2012. Group revenue for the quarter was £13.7m (2011: £8.5m), with orders received during the period worth £13.4m (2011: £9.4m). At the end of the period that group has £8.7m cash, slightly lower than £10.1m at the start of the period, partly the result of having paid a deferred consideration of £0.5m.

Plastics Capital, a niche platics products group, has said it expects its result for the full year to 31 March 2012 will be in line with market expectations, despite sales continuing to be affected by the aftermath of the Thai floods. The firm said profit margins have remained good, cash flow has been strong and its debt continues to reduce in line with expectations. The company was also keen to emphasise strong progress in both the US and China, and said its packaging division has seen an 'encouraging' conclusion to the financial year with fourth quarter sales being the strongest of the financial year.

Forum Energy, a UK-incorporated oil and gas exploration and production company, has unveiled the findings of a report which shows an improvement in the previously known resources at its exploration license SC 72 in the Philippines, supporting the case to continue with the drilling programme. The company will now decide how to fund the programme, set to cost $75m. Given the company's 70% stake in the license, it has a best estimate of 154m barrels of oil and liquids and 6,159bn cubic feet of gas.

During the period net borrowings decreased from ZAR 421m to ZAR 458m. In the three month period ferrochrome production was 48,762 tonnes, compared to 54,142 the previous quarter and 51,446 the same quarter the previous year, while sales were 52,930 tonnes, compared to 58,389 the previous quarter and 48,420 the same period the previous year. Stock at the end of the quarter was 6,568 tonnes, compared with 10,737 at December 31st 2011 and 17,513 at March 31st 2011.

International Ferro Metals, the AIM-listed integrated ferrochrome producer, moved back into overall profitability on a monthly basis for March, with 37.5 per cent of targeted production cost savings achieved during the quarter ended March 31st.

"Smiths is demonstrating that it can prosper for a few years yet in an environment in which physical sales of newspapers, magazines and books are all declining. Diversification is the long-term answer and the schools foray looks a good bet." Tempus says buy.

Tempus also has analysed newspaper and magazine group Smiths News and yesterday's decision to push into the distribution-to-schools market with the purchase of Hedgelane for up to £38m in cash and shares. The shares trade at five times expected 2012 earnings and yield 9% - "That's the measure of how seriously investors regard the move online of newspapers and magazines," Hosking writes.

Agree steady rns....Going in the right direction.....