Daily Market Highlights (11.12.14)

  • During this morning’s trading session, the MSE Share Index slipped 0.9% to a new 22-month low of 3,231.982 points as most of the active equities closed in negative territory. Download a copy of the Equity Market Summary.
  • On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index was practically unchanged at 1,099.037 points as Eurozone yields continued to hover near all-time lows. Meanwhile, this afternoon, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced that it experienced weak demand for its almost zero cost loans (LTRO) as European Banks only applied for just above half of the €400 billion available. Analysts are now interpreting this weak demand as further reason for the ECB to launch quantitative easing.
  • HSBC shed 2.6% to drop back to its 2014 low of €1.90 across 16 trades totalling 43,610 shares.
  • Similarly, BOV ended the session again in negative territory with a 0.5% drop to €2.18 across a total of 32,497 shares. The Bank is scheduled to hold its Annual General Meeting on 17 December.
  • Two trades of 3,281 shares in GO pushed the price of the telecoms operator down by 0.2% to €2.504.
  • Likewise, Lombard Bank also closed the session in negative territory as it shed 0.3% to €1.755 across a single trade of 5,000 shares.
  • The equity of MIA trended lower for the second consecutive session as it retreated by a further 3.5% today back to the €2.22 level across two deals totalling 2,800 shares.
  • On the other hand, Plaza Centres led the trio of gainers, inching 1.6% higher to regain the €0.64 level (just €0.009 below its 2014 high) across a total of 38,218 shares.
  • The equity of Medserv also moved 1.4% higher to a fresh 2014 high of €1.41 across a single deal of 3,500 shares.
  • Similarly, the share price of Simonds Farsons Cisk rose to an intra-day high of €3.05 before easing to a close of €3.04 which still represents a 0.7% increase over the previous closing price. A total of 5,200 shares changed hands across two deals.
  • Meanwhile, a further 36,981 shares of MaltaPost changed hands at the equity’s all-time high of €1.25 across two deals. On Tuesday, the postal operator revealed a 37.6% increase in pre-tax profits to €2.7 million largely reflecting the continued growth in e-commerce and the upward revision of certain tariffs with effect from January 2014. However, the Directors recommended an unchanged final net dividend of €0.04 per share to all shareholders as at the close of trading on Monday 15 January and proposed to give the option to shareholders to take the dividend either in cash or in the form of new shares at the attribution price of €1.16 per share.
  • Likewise, 10,000 shares of Tigne Mall were traded at the equity’s all-time high of €0.585 level, unchanged from the previous closing price.
  • This morning, IHI issued an announcement explaining how the geographical diversification of their portfolio is mitigating part of the adverse impact from Libya and Russia. Furthermore, the announcement explained that whilst all the properties, except the ones in St. Petersburg and Tripoli, are expected to continue registering improvements going forward, the Group’s management company is also expected to grow especially through the management of third party properties and IHI is also branching out into development services. The announcement, however, failed to generate any trades on the market.