Sunday share tips: Centamin, Nanoco, Johnson Matthey

Centamin, the Egyptian gold miners, was tipped in the Sunday Times' Inside the City column. The FTSE 250-listed company has had a mixed run, last year halving in value from above 160p in May before cutting its production guidance due to persistent low grades at its Sukari mine, hitting a low below 85p in September. Last month the company confirmed gold production in 2018 had fallen 13%, despite a 17% increase in the final quarter.

For full year results, which are due later this month, Centamin is expected to pay a dividend of 4.1 cents a share, putting its shares on a yield of 2.7% compared to peers around 4% and 5%. However, the stock is changing hands for just under 11 times earnings, compared to the likes of Fresnillo on a p/e ratio of 17.9. Broker Panmure Gordon have set a target for the shares, which finished last week at 118.35p, at 140p target, seeing many of its problems have been addressed. What's more, the gold price has risen steadily since November, closing last week at $1,317 an ounce.

Nanoco, a Manchester-based high-tech company, was tipped by Midas in the Mail on Sunday. The company's specialism is a nanomaterial called quantum dots, which display light more effectively than any other products on the market and use less energy in the process. Originally focused on improving clarity for screens for smart watches to 100-inch televisions, where tech made colours brighter and prolonged battery life on mobile devices such as phones and tablets, but the applications have been widened to also offer uses for driverless cars, where the nano-materials make sensors more accurate and therefore safer. As well as trials of the particles to improve cancer survival rates by making tumours more visible to surgeons, there are also trials in place to see if they help detect early-stage cancer. The materials might also have uses in 'vertical farming' where crops are grown in vertically stacked layers, where exact control of light and heat is very important.

Having been through some tough periods in trying to commercialise the technology, the group "now seems more likely than ever before to achieve its goal", Midas says, with partnerships at various stages with more than 20 large businesses, including electronics specialist Plessey and chemicals giant Dow Chemicals. An unnamed American giant also paid Nanoco more than £4m in 2018 as the pair progressed through certain milestones, including funding a manufacturing facility in Runcorn that is scheduled to get up and running in the second 2019. Like many tech companies looking to commercialise, Nanoco is loss-making but has "cash in the bank and profits should start to trickle through within a couple of years".

Questor in the Sunday Telegraph tipped Johnson Matthey as the chemicals company looks to develop its futuristic batteries. JMAT is looking to bring its high-energy battery materials, including its class-leading enhanced lithium nickel oxide (eLNO) product, to market, which it says will enable development of long-range pure battery electric vehicles.

At November's interim results, the company sais commercialisation was progressing with a pilot plant operational and on track for design and construction of our first commercial plant with board approval for the initial capital investment. The plant will be located in mainland Europe in line with the development of its supply chain but initial production is not expected until 2021/22.

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