Financial news

Activity on the Malta Stock Exchange dwindled to a standstill during yesterday's session as a technical glitch half way through the session halted all trading activity. Activity was anyway soft with trades being struck in only two securities, as investors shunned the market during the peak of the summer holiday season.

HSBC Bank Malta was the only equity that traded, the activity consisting of 2,290 shares which were swapped across five transactions. All deals were struck at the Lm1.92,9 level which represents the slimmest of discounts over Tuesday's session closing price. At the end of the session demand stood for less than a thousand shares at Lm1.92, while supply consisted of 9,150 shares best offered at Lm1.93.

HSBC shares have climbed and closed above the Lm2.00 level following the company's interim results, published earlier this month which showed a 23.1 per cent jump in pre-tax profits which came in at Lm25.3 million. However, the equity readjusted once it commenced trading ex-dividend on an interim and special of 10c6 gross on aggregate.

Today, Middlesea Insurance will be issuing their interim results for the six-month period ended on June 30. Going into today's session, investors were bidding Lm1.65, the last traded price, for 1,738 shares while supply was best offered three per cent higher at Lm1.70 for 5,660 shares.

FIMBank will be reporting their set of interim figures on August 23, while GlobalCapital announced during the day that its board of directors will be meeting to review their six-month performance and possibly declare an interim dividend on August 24. 

The MSE Index closed the session basically flat at 4,870 points.

Global stocks fall

Yesterday, European equity markets approached their lowest levels of the year as concerns about financial companies and their exposure to the tightening of the credit market gathered pace. The Xetra Dax 30 in Frankfurt fell 2.4 per cent. The CAC 40 in Paris was 2.7 per cent weaker, the IBEX-35 in Madrid fell 2.6 per cent and in Stockholm the OMX 30 was three per cent lower.

Ongoing concerns about the health of world credit markets after the US subprime lending crisis continued to cast its shadow over global equities, dragging London's leading shares 3.3 per cent lower. This is the first time the FTSE has fallen below 6,000 since March. It also takes the index into negative territory for the year, and more than 800 points below its year-high of 6,732.4 set in June.

Asia Pacific shares posted some of their worst intra-day falls this year, with some markets faring as badly as in the days following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

US stock futures fell after Countrywide Financial Corp. said it borrowed $11.5 billion to stem mortgage-market losses and a Federal Reserve member said only a "calamity" would justify an interest-rate cut.

The financial news was compiled by Valletta Fund Management (Tel. 8007 2344) and Bank of Valletta plc (Tel. 2131 2020). BOV and VFM are licensed by the MFSA to conduct investment services business.