Daily Market Highlights (27.10.16)

  • The MSE Share Index posted its worst daily performance in over two weeks as it slid by 0.49% to a one-week low of 4,527.753 points on robust volumes. In fact, just over €1.01 million worth of shares changed hands today – the highest level of trading in a single day in over three months. Download a copy of today’s Equity Market Summary.
  • On the bond market, the RF MGS Index moved lower for the third consecutive day as it suffered the sharpest drop in six weeks of 0.22% to an over one-week low of 1,177.723 points. The indicative bid prices quoted by the Central Bank of Malta (CBM) for all Malta Government Stocks (MGSs) were lower today. Euro zone sovereign yields rose sharply today, with the 10-year benchmark German Bund touching a near five-month high of 0.154% from a low of 0.019% yesterday. On the economic front, although Spain’s unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in nearly seven years of 18.9% in Q3 2016, it remains the second highest in Europe after Greece. Following the two inconclusive national elections in Spain, a new government is now expected to be formed on Saturday after several parties agreed to step aside and allow conservative leader Mr Mariano Rajoy to govern.
  • Most of today’s trading activity took place in the equity of Bank of Valletta plc which advanced 0.4% to the €2.30 level after briefly touching a fresh nineteen-month high of €2.305. A total of 343,802 BOV shares having a market value of €0.79 million (representing 78.1% of the total value of equities traded today) changed hands. BOV will reveal its 2015/16 full-year financial results tomorrow afternoon.
  • A single deal of 15,000 shares lifted the equity of Medserv plc 0.6% higher from its 2016 low of €1.50 to the €1.509 level.
  • Malta Properties Company plc recaptured the €0.62 level (+1.6%) across 22,966 shares.
  • GO plc moved closer to its five-month high of €3.25 as it gained 0.3% to the €3.23 level on shallow volumes.
  • The gains by the various equities were outweighed by the declines in the share prices of three large companies. Most notably, RS2 Software plc plummeted 5.4% to a fresh one-year low of €1.40 on heightened activity totalling 79,638 shares.
  • HSBC Bank Malta plc registered its first decline in the last eleven trading sessions as it retreated by 1.6% from its seventeen-month high of €1.93 to the €1.90 level across 16,674 shares.
  • Malta International Airport plc erased most of yesterday’s gains as it dropped 0.9% to the €4.14 level across 8,200 shares.
  • This morning, Mizzi Organisation Finance plc announced that its €30 million 6.2% bonds will be redeemed in full on the first date possible – i.e. 30 November 2016. Trading in the bonds will be suspended as from 11 November.