Several equities post declines

 

The MSE Equity Price Index fell by 0.47% to 4,019.553 points as several equities ended the day in negative territory whilst only Farsons, IHI and Malita performed positively. Meanwhile, another four shares traded flat on trading activity totalling €0.31 million. Download today’s Equity Market Summary.

Lombard Bank Malta plc was the most actively traded as well as the worst performing equity today. The bank’s share price tumbled by 8.2% to the €2.02 level on volumes totalling 34,187 shares.

Within the same sector, HSBC Bank Malta plc lost 2% back to the €0.96 level across 41,000 shares.

GO plc eased 0.6% to a new 2020 low of €3.40 across 14,150 shares. On Monday, GO announced that it will be recommending to the Annual General Meeting (to be held on 28 July) the approval of the payment of a net dividend of €0.10 per share. The dividend will be paid on 30 July to those shareholders who appeared on the register as at close of trading on 28 April.

GO’s data centre subsidiary – BMIT Technologies plc – moved back to the €0.49 level (-1.6%) on a single deal of just 5,000 shares. Low trading activity also took place in Malta Properties Company plc as the equity slipped by 1.7% to €0.58.

PG plc retracted back to the €1.98 level (-1%) on a total of 5,944 shares.

The other negative performing equity was MIDI plc as it plunged 7.5% to the €0.37 level across 29,000 shares. This morning, MIDI reiterated its commitment to the Manoel Island project after the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal yesterday revoked the permit granted to it by the Planning Authority on 20 March 2019.

Also in the property segment, Malita Investments plc added 0.6% to the €0.895 level on volumes of 3,400 shares.

A single deal of 3,000 shares lifted the equity of International Hotel Investments plc 0.9% higher to the €0.56 level. IHI is due to publish the results for the 2019 financial year on 26 June 2020.

Elsewhere, Harvest Technology plc recovered strongly from an intraday low of €1.43 (-1.4%) as it ended the day at a 4-week high of €1.49 across 5,900 shares.

Simonds Farsons Cisk plc regained the €8.20 level (+2.5%) albeit on light volumes.

Meanwhile, RS2 Software plc retained its three-month high of €2.40 across 13,007 shares. In addition to the recent signing of a major processing outsourcing agreement with one of the largest acquirers in the US for a ten year term with the option to renew, on Tuesday, F1 Payments (a US fintech company), Cross River Bank (a US commercial banking corporation) and RS2 announced a new partnership aimed at delivering payment processing services throughout North America. F1 Payments will utilise RS2’s global processing platform and will be RS2’s first merchant acquiring processing partner in the US. In this respect, RS2’s CEO in North America, Ms Daniela Mielke, commented that the new agreement is “a big leap forward in the North American marketplace” and “highlights our efforts to transform the complexity of payments into opportunity, innovation and growth across all touchpoints in the payments ecosphere.”

Malta International Airport plc also closed unchanged at the €5.80 level across 9,844 shares.

Bank of Valletta plc (9,968 shares) and FIMBank plc (25,766 shares) traded flat at €1.01 and USD0.40 respectively.

The RF MGS Index trended higher for the first time in three days as it rebounded by a minimal 0.04% to 1,096.954 points. Investor sentiment across international financial markets was mixed amid fears of resurgent COVID-19 cases in China whilst economic activity across the world continues to recover. Meanwhile, in the US, applications for initial unemployment benefits eased slightly to 1.5 million last week (higher than the previous estimate of 1.3 million) from 1.54 million in the previous week. As a result, the total number of continuing claims remained above the 20 million mark.