Top gainers
Shares in CheckFree rose sharply last week as Fiserv announced Wednesday it had reached an agreement to purchase the company in a $48.00-per-share deal worth around $4.4 billion. CheckFree's shares finished the week up 20.35% to $44.95, after it also reported a fall in fiscal fourth quarter and full year net income after higher costs and a one-time charge ate into earnings.

Fiserv finished the week down 3.53% to $47.78 on news of the acquisition.

Shares in Chicago-based investment research and software firm Morningstar soared on Thursday as it reported a 64% increase in second quarter earnings. The stock ended the week up 19.35% to $58.77. Net income rose to $18.3 million, or 38 cents a share, from $11.2 million, or 24 cents a share, in the second quarter of 2006. The company reported sales of $109.7 million, up from $76.3 million in the previous year. It attributes this rise to acquisitions, such as March's addition of Standard & Poor's mutual fund data business, and strong international growth.

Indian business process outsourcing specialist Mphasis ended the week 16.57% higher at Rs303.50, climbing again after a steady decline throughout July. Market speculation about an imminent offer from EDS, which already owns about 62% of the company, is keeping the stock volatile, particularly ahead of the annual general meeting due to be held on Monday 6 August. At this meeting revised financials for the year ended 31 March 2007 were due to be approved, including the merger of the EDS Electronic Data Systems (India) business into its operations.

Fininfo rose 16% last week to close at EUR16.60, despite announcing on Wednesday that net profit in the first half of the year fell to EUR4.2 million from EUR6 million a year earlier on sales of EUR78 million, up from EUR66.6 million the previous year.

EUR16.60 is the price per share that Holding company Financiere Jeulin, representing 52% owner Gerard Jeulin and The Amber Fund,have offered as part of their plans to take total control of the company, sell it to Swiss market data firm Telekurs, and then buy back the Altares knowledge management division and two other small divisions.

Other companies to post significant weekly gains include: Online Resources, up 11.28% to $11.94; Oberthur Card Systems, up 10.54% to EUR5.98; and Vasco Data Security, up 9.02% to $28.76.

Biggest losers
Linedata Services fell sharply amind heavy trading on Friday morning, and ended the week down 16.38% to finish at EUR16.95. This came on the back of second-quarter results below market expectations. Quarterly revenues were up 3.4% to EUR36.6 million. First half revenue rose 12.9% on last year based on a like-for-like exchange rate. Growth was particularly strong in northern Europe and Asia, but Southern Europe and North America remained fairly static.

Australian securities industry specialist Computershare, which is one of the five biggest companies in the Finextra50 index, fell 7.65% last week to finish at AUD$9.18. The share registry operator's drop was seen as linked to fears that the US sub-prime mortgage market problem could push up the cost of corporate debt, and reduce M&A activity in the market.

Swiss core banking system vendor Temenos also fell 6.4% last week to end at Chf27.80, continuing the slide it has seen since hitting a 52-week high 52 of Chf31.50 on 26 July.

Other companies to slide last week include: Fidessa, which continued to reverse mid July's gains to end down 5.44% to 974p; and Wincor Nixdorf, which continued to slide 5.4% to EUR65 after disappointing sales growth figures were released on July 24.

Index comparison



Methodology
More information on the Finextra50 Financial Technology Index methodology and constituent stocks can be found here.