GO touches new all-time low

Further selling pressure in the equity of GO plc emerged during the initial stages of this morning’s trading session as over 30,000 shares changed hands at the €0.95 level – a new all-time low for the equity. Subsequently, some demand resurfaced to help GO’s share price partially recover to close this morning’s session at the €1.00 level representing a 1% drop from the previous close. GO ranks as this week’s worst performing equity with a 3.9% drop after the quad play telecom operator confirmed the transfer of Forthnet’s shares to the ‘Under Surveillance’ segment on the Athens Stock Exchange. This transfer was due to the goodwill impairments totalling €56.9 million incurred by Forthnet in its financial statements between 2010 and the first six months of 2011. Forthnet is due to convene an Extraordinary General Meeting on 15 December 2011 for the purposes of approving a €30 million rights issue.

HSBC Bank Malta plc also closed in negative territory today as its share eased 0.4% back to its 29-month low of €2.58 (-0.8% over the week) across three trades totalling 7,435 shares. Meanwhile Bank of Valletta plc edged 0.4% higher to €2.51 on volumes of 18,450 shares.

The only other active equity today was Simonds Farsons Cisk plc with its share price easing 0.6% to €1.80 on a single trade of 700 shares.

On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index rose by 0.3% to 980.626 points representing a weekly increase of 1%. This reflects this week’s downturn in Eurozone yields from above 2.30% to just below the 2.2% level as confidence across the region was somewhat restored following the coordinated action by several central banks to support liquidity particularly across European Banks as well as the successful bond auctions launched by France, Spain and Italy. International equity markets staged a remarkable rally in the past few days with the FTSE 100 in the UK heading 7.8% higher and larger gains for the French CAC40 (+11.9%), the DAX30 (+12.1%) and the FTSE MIB Italy (+12.5%). The US markets also climbed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average advancing by 7% in the first four sessions of the week and the S&P 500 up 8.6%. The US equity markets are expected to continue rising today as it was just revealed that the unemployment rate in the US dropped to 8.6%, the lowest level in 30 months, as the recovery in the world’s biggest economy gather momentum.