Major gainers
Indian loan management software provider Nucleus Software was the index's strongest performer last week, rising 4.6% to finish at Rs363.00. News that it has signed a deal for its FinnOne suite with Chennai-based Dhandapani Finance, in partnership with Sun Microsystems, signaled the start of a new strategy for the company. CEO Vishnu Dusad says Nucleus aims to use this deal as a foothold for further expanding into the rural and semi urban financial markets.

The only other companies to post significant gains last week were S1, which closed up 3.33% to $8.06, and Vasco Data Security, which continued its recent strong performance with a 3.29% increase last week to finish at $32.35. The authentication specialist traded as high as $35.19 on Wednesday after announcing it had signed a non-exclusive distribution agreement with Azlan-Tech Data, an IT distributor in Europe and the Middle East, to boost the availability of Vasco's Digipass Pack product bundles in EMEA markets.


Major losers
Shares in Linedata Services suffered the index's largest fall last week, as they closed last week down 9.93% to EUR13.51, after hitting a four-year low of EUR13.24 on Friday. Despite positive news that it had signed a new client for its LongView order management systems - Jefferies & Company's prime brokerage unit - investor sentiment continued to drag the stock down ahead of its publishing of half-yearly results on Monday September 10. In early August it announced that despite reasonable revenue growth, it expected that first half EBITDA would be at the same level as it posted in the first half of 2006.

Broadridge Financial Solutions fell 8.03% last week to finish at $16.71. Since reporting a 2% quarterly profit decline on 22 August the stock has been quite volatile, compounded by speculation it might lose online brokerage E*Trade as a customer if the ongoing E*Trade - TD Ameritrade merger talks move to the next level.

Other stocks that suffered significant falls last week include Orc Software, which was down 7.1% to Skr147.25; Actuate, which was down 6.49% to $6.63; and Fidessa, which closed at 969p, down 5.37%

Morningstar also ended the week down, falling 5.55% to $60.94 after it announced it had paid US$3.2 million to settle a legal dispute with the founder of its Australian subsidiary.

The now appropriately named Graham Rich was fired in 2001 after disputes with Morningstar and he subsequently filed a lawsuit. Last week's settlement will see both parties dismiss and release all claims. Morningstar said it had previously set aside reserves of about $2.1 million in connection with the dispute.

Index comparison



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