Daily Market Highlights (27.08.12)

  • Local equity market reverses some of last week’s gains as the MSE Share Index drops 0.6% to 3,032.302 points. Today’s downturn was due to the declines registered in the share prices of HSBC, GO and GHM which offset the 0.9% rise in BOV. Meanwhile the three other active equities ended the session unchanged. Download a copy of the Equity Market Summary.
  • On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index eased minimally lower to 998.067 points as Eurozone yields edged marginally higher to surpass the 1.35% level. Markets are still awaiting details with respect to the European Central Bank’s (ECB) plans to buy bonds of ailing countries in the region.
  • Sustained demand for BOV helped the Bank’s equity continue to advance to touch a new 7-month high of €2.25 before easing to a close of €2.24 representing a 0.9% increase over last Friday’s close. A total of 17,737 shares were exchanged across seven trades.  Following today’s upturn, BOV’s equity has moved into positive territory since the start of this year with a 0.8% rise. Next month marks the end of Bank’s financial year with the preliminary results generally published by the end of October.
  • HSBC Bank Malta plc’s share price (which has been retreating for the past four consecutive weeks) retreated by a further 1.5% during this morning’s session to €2.60 across six trades totalling 6,833 shares. Nonetheless, similar to BOV’s equity, HSBC is currently 0.8% above their value at the beginning of 2012.
  • GO plc retreated to its lowest level since 4 June 2012. The share price slumped another 7.1% today to the €0.92 level across eleven trades totalling just over 87,000 shares. This renewed downturn is possibly in view of Forgendo’s (in which GO has a 50% shareholding) promised participation in Forthnet’s €30 million rights issue approved last week. Further details available here.
  • A further 1,050 Lombard shares changed hands at the equity’s multi-year low of €2.00 across a single deal. Last week the Lombard Group revealed a 36.5% plunge in its profitability on the back of a 6.5% drop in net interest income to €6.8 million reflecting the Bank’s prudent and cautious approach which yields low returns as well as the adverse effects of the changes in the tariffs imposed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) on MaltaPost plc’s financials. Moreover, the half-year figures of the Lombard Group were also adversely impacted by the non-occurrence of a gain on the sale of investments of €1.2 million that took place last year as well as an increase in loan impairments to €0.46 million in line with the Bank’s provisioning policy in the prevailing challenging circumstances. Further details on results available here.
  • MIA also unchanged at the €1.74 level on a single trade of 4,000 shares. The airport operator is scheduled to pay the recently declared interim net dividend of €0.03 per share on 10 September.
  • Likewise, Medserv shares held on to the €3.95 level on volumes of 1,000 shares. The company is due to publish its half-year results on 31 August.