Daily Market Highlights (04.10.12)

  • MSE Share Index again moved lower with a further 0.1% decline to 3,140.422 points following a 0.5% drop in BOV’s share price. Meanwhile, the only two other active equities, namely Farsons and RS2, ended the session unchanged at their respective multi-year highs. Download a copy of the Equity Market Summary.
  • On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index eased minimally lower to 998.031 points as the Central Bank of Malta lowered its bid prices for the medium and long term government paper. This contrasted with this morning’s dip in eurozone yields below the 1.45% level. However, this afternoon, the benchmark 10-year German bund yields shot up to the 1.465% level on speculation that the Eurozone will provide insurance to whoever buys Spanish government bonds. During today’s monetary policy meetings, both the European Central Bank and the Bank of England maintained interest rates unchanged at 0.75% and 0.5% respectively.
  • Fresh sell orders emerged during this morning’s session sending BOV’s share price to a new 7-week low of €2.15 before partially recovering to close today’s trading session at the €2.19 level. Today’s closing price still represents a 0.5% drop from yesterday’s close. A total of 59,200 shares changed hands today across fifteen trades. Yesterday afternoon BOV announced that the latest EU-wide bank stress results, published by the European Banking Authority, confirmed that the Bank enjoys a strong Tier 1 Capital ratio (a measure of capital adequacy by comparing shareholders’ capital to risk-weighted assets) of 10.6%, which is significantly above the minimum of 9% required by European regulation. BOV is shortly expected to publish its September 2012 full-year results.
  • Meanwhile, the share price of Simonds Farsons Cisk was supported at its 4-year high of €2.30 as another 4,000 shares changed hands at this level. The recently declared net interim dividend of €0.0133 per share will now be paid on 19 October.
  • Similarly, the shares of RS2 Software maintained their multi-year high of €0.60 on a single trade of 2,240 shares. Last Sunday, RS2 announced that it was awarded a new licence agreement for Latin America with a value of EUR5 million.