Daily Market Highlights (07.08.12)

  • MSE Share Index recovered most of yesterday’s 1% drop with a 0.9% rise during this morning’s session to 3,085.284 points despite the shallow trading activity which is customary during this time of the year. Today’s upturn follows the 6.3% jump in IHI’s share price and the marginal increase in MIA. Meanwhile MaltaPost and Middlesea slid to new multi-year lows. Download a copy of the Equity Market Summary.
  • On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index edged 0.1% higher to 995.864 points although Eurozone yields reached a 1-month high of 1.469%. This reflects improved investor sentiment on the back of the increased prospect that the European Central Bank (ECB) will resume its support in the bond markets to help ailing countries in the region.
  • This afternoon, the Malta Stock Exchange confirmed the listing of 30,000,000 shares of Malita Investments plc which were issued in July. Trading in these shares is expected to commence on Monday 13 August.
  • IHI’s share price surged by 6.3% to regain the €0.85 level on a single trade of 1,000 shares. The IHI Group still have to announce the date of publication their half-year results.
  • MIA shares edged minimally higher to close at the €1.74 level across five trades totalling 4,400 shares. Yesterday, the airport operator revealed a record number of passenger movements in a month with 445,232 passengers’ movements during July. During the first seven months of the year, MIA registered a 2.8% increase in passenger numbers compared to its updated 2012 growth forecast of 1.5% to a new yearly record of 3.56 million passenger movements.
  • Meanwhile, MaltaPost’s equity tumbled a further 7.9% to a new 2-year low of €0.82 on a small deal of 546 shares. Following this morning’s downturn, the share price of the postal operator is now 18% below its value at the beginning of the year reflecting the 54.5% drop in profitability to €0.5 million mainly due to the adverse impact on the Company’s revenues and cost base emanating from the changes in tariffs imposed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) on cross border mail.
  • Middlesea Insurance’s share price also closed at a new 32-month low of €0.605 on just 530 shares. The shares of Middlesea currently rank as the worst performer in 2012 with a year-to-date drop of 24.4% despite a sizeable turnaround in profitability to €2.79 million during the first six months of 2012.
  • The only other active equity was BOV which held on to the €2.11 level across three trades totalling 5,846 shares with bids already placed minimally higher.