MSE Equity Price Index posts 4-day negative streak

 

The MSE Equity Price Index moved lower for the fourth consecutive day as it dropped by a further 0.47% to 3,994.073 points. The decline in the share prices of GO, MIA and Medserv outweighed the gains in three other companies. Trading activity remained muted as only €0.12 million worth of shares changed hands. Download today’s Equity Market Summary.

Malta International Airport plc eased 1.2% to the €4.84 level after failing to hold on to an intra-day high of €5.00 on a total of 4,614 shares. Yesterday, the airport operator published its quarterly earnings report showing that during the first three months of the year, MIA generated €12.8 million in revenues and posted a net profit of €1.41 million. The Statement of Financial Position also shows that MIA had total cash balances of nearly €42 million as at 31 March 2020. The company noted that it is sufficiently resilient to sustain the current adverse conditions and that during the current financial year, it has sufficient resources to meet its financial obligations.

Also, among the large companies, GO plc tumbled 6.2% to the €3.62 level on eight deals totalling 16,843 shares.

The other negative performing equity today was Medserv plc as it plummeted 12.5% to a near six-year low of €0.70 albeit on just 6,800 shares.

Meanwhile, Bank of Valletta plc moved 1% to the €1.05 level across 15,000 shares and Lombard Bank Malta plc regained the €2.10 level (+1.9%) across 1,950 shares.

A single deal of 5,625 shares lifted the equity of RS2 Software plc 2.1% higher to the €1.92 level.

Yesterday, Trident Estates plc reported an increase of just over 7% in revenues in the 2019/20 financial year to €1.15 million. However, the financial performance was dented by the non-recurrence of fair value gains on investment property which led to a marked drop in net profits to €0.07 million. The company explained that due to the ‘COVID-19’ pandemic’, the completion of Trident Park will now be slightly delayed to H1 2021. Trident Estates warned that the take up of space is expected to be slower and the rental rates will be subject to downward pressure from those parameters originally anticipated. Nonetheless, it expressed its confidence that because of the quality of the design of the building, the finished development will have a competitive advantage as and when the market recovers.

The RF MGS Index extended yesterday’s gain as it climbed by a further 0.13% to 1,113.226 points. Prices of Malta Government Stocks moved higher amid renewed uncertainties on the timing and strength of economic activity across the world. Today, the ECB published its periodic ‘Economic Bulletin’ in which it showed that euro area GDP could fall by between 5% and 12% this year, depending on the duration of the containment measures and the success of policies to mitigate the economic consequences for businesses. Meanwhile, in the US, nearly 3 million people filed jobless claims last week, thus bringing the total number of benefit seekers to roughly 36.5 million over the past eight weeks since the outbreak of the ‘COVID-19’ pandemic.