HSBC share price drops to €0.79

 

The MSE Equity Price Index dropped by 0.18% to 3,964.502 points following the declines in HSBC, BMIT and Main Street. Meanwhile, Harvest was today’s only positively performing equity while GO, MIA and MPC closed unchanged as overall trading activity amounted to €0.09 million. Download today’s Equity Market Summary.

HSBC Bank Malta plc moved 1.9% lower to an over one month low of €0.79 on activity of 42,587 shares, representing nearly 40% of today’s trading value.

Meanwhile, Malta International Airport plc closed unchanged at the €6.45 level across 1,206 shares. Today, MIA published a quarterly update providing information about its performance in Q1 2021 when compared to the same period in 2020. During Q1 2021, revenues dropped markedly to €5.08 million compared to €12.8 million in Q1 2020 reflecting the significant reduction of 90.2% in passenger movements to just 0.1 million (Q1 2020: 1 million). Overall, MIA posted a loss before tax of €3.12 million compared to a pre-tax profit of €2.27 million in Q1 2020. MIA stated that recent developments including the easing of restrictions, both locally and in important markets, augur well for the second half of the year.

Similarly, GO plc also traded flat at the €3.68 level across 1,450 shares. Meanwhile, GO plc’s data centre subsidiary, BMIT Technologies plc, declined by nearly 2% to the €0.50 level as 15,000 shares changed hands.

Today’s only positive performer, Harvest Technologies plc gained 1.3% to the €1.54 level across 16,080 shares.

In the property sector, Main Street Complex plc lost 2% to an over one month low of €0.488 across 5,000 shares. Meanwhile, Malta Properties Company plc closed unchanged at the €0.545 level after it failed to hold onto an intra-day high of €0.555 (+1.8%) on a total of 7,021 shares.

The RF MGS Index moved lower for the eighth time in the past 10 sessions with a decline of 0.11% to 1,099.310 points as investor sentiment remained positive following news that Britain’s unemployment rate fell to 4.8% between January and March even though the country spent much of the period in lockdown. Meanwhile within the Eurozone, the economy contracted by 0.6% in the first quarter of 2021 and employment also fell by 0.3% as restrictive measures impacted various sectors.

This afternoon, RS2 Software plc confirmed that its German subsidiary RS2 Financial Services GmbH has been granted an E-Money Institution (EMI) licence by the BaFIN, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority. The EMI licence allows the Group to provide a wider range of financial services comparing with payment institutions and allows safeguarding client funds for an unlimited period of time.