Financial News

Equities rallied during the mid week session at the Malta Stock Exchange as supply dwindled and investors grabbed whatever shares were available.

HSBC Bank Malta rallied 13 cents or 2.1 per cent to close the day at the Lm6.35 level. Lack of supply was the main story here and at the end of the session the best bid in the market was for 1,350 shares at Lm6.30 while 1,000 shares were best offered at Lm6.40.

Bank of Valletta shares continued to gain and closed once again at a new record high. The day's activity saw a total of 6,405 shares being exchanged across 15 trades, pushing the price higher by 4c5 or 0.8 per cent to close at Lm5.68c.

For the second consecutive session, International Hotel Investments was the day's top gainer, notching higher by a further 4.7 per cent to the €0.77l. Demand for Malta International Airport shares in the opened market remained assiduous, and as a result the price ticked 0c2 higher to close the day at Lm1.40c5.

Maltacom shares gained too, although slightly but the price remained well below the key resistance level of Lm1.60. A grand total of 10,000 shares were struck across eight deals helping the price close at Lm1.57. Elsewhere in the market two investors swapped 2,000 shares of Simonds Farsons Cisk shares at the 88 cents level which represents a 3.3 per cent premium to its previous price.

Tokyo stocks close lower on profit-taking

European equities were down yesterday, but recovered some of their earlier losses as gains for oil and auto stocks helped offset the damage caused by concerns over global interest rates. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 0.4 per cent to 1,208.42, while Frankfurt's Xetra Dax shed 0.6 per cent to 5,000.08. In Paris, the CAC 40 fell 0.5 per cent to 4,529.1 and the FTSE 100 lost 0.3 per cent to 5,367.

London equities slipped yesterday with clothing group Burberry a leading faller after it admitted sales growth had slowed.

In the US overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average put on 0.1 per cent to 10,253.17, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq, in the face of rising oil prices and hawkish sentiment from the minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting, fell 0.9 per cent to 2,061.09.

Japanese stocks at last succumbed to profit-taking yesterday afternoon, following the strongest rise in a year on Tuesday. The Nikkei 225 finished down 0.7 per cent at 13,463.74. The Topix, which has a strong weighting in stocks, such as banking, that performed relatively well, rose 0.1 per cent to 1,406.89.

Steel stocks ended down on the day, after dipping in and out of positive territory yesterday following Tuesday's large rise. Nippon Steel, Japan's biggest steelmaker, slid three per cent to Y424.