Canaccord Genuity maintains 'hold' rating on Spirent Communications following CMD

Canaccord said Spirent management had reiterated its medium-term targets of around 5% sales growth, maintaining strong gross margins and a "progressive" operating margin, reassuringly in line with consensus expectations.

However, the Canadian bank did point out that there was no comment on current trading, and said it continued to look for signs of upside to revenue/growth expectations after "a very solid, yet lumpy" first half.

Canaccord, which maintained both its 'hold' rating and 260.0p target price on the stock, said Spirent shares remained "an attractive play" on multiple technology themes - such as the rollout of 5G and data growth - and added that, encouragingly, it also saw scope for a 6% upside to consensus earnings per share in the current trading year.