New bids emerged during this morning’s sessions of the stock exchange helping the share price of GO plc advance by a further 1.7% to a new 16-month high of €1.22 across nine trades totalling 14,730 shares. The equity of the quad-play telecoms operator have risen by 2.5% since the start of 2013 with the market awaiting GO’s decision whether it will be supporting the €30 million rights issue of Forthnet.
High volumes traded in Plaza Centres plc with 500,000 shares (representing almost 1.8% of the total issued share capital), changing hands at the €0.55 level, up 1.9% from the previous close. In spite of today’s upturn, Plaza’s have dropped by 8.3% since the start of the New Year as the equity reversed the gains registered in late 2012 which came about on very low volumes.
Meanwhile, another four equities edged lower today including the two large banks. The share price of Bank of Valletta plc shed 1% to the €2.41 level thereby erasing this year’s earlier gains. BOV’s share price eased by 0.2% since the start of the year. Trading activity in BOV shares has been on the increase in the run up to next Monday’s bonus issue cut-off date with almost 255,000 shares changing hands since the start of 2013.
The share price of HSBC Bank Malta plc dropped by 0.3% during this morning’s session to €2.74 across two deals totalling 7,140 shares. In contrast to BOV, HSBC’s equity edged higher since the start of the New Year with a 1.5% rise ahead of the Bank’s preliminary results publication on 4 March.
Minimal declines were also registered in Malta International Airport plc’s equity to €1.799 on low volumes of 1,200 shares. The airport operator is shortly expected to publish the official passenger numbers for 2012 which should reflect the third consecutive annual passenger record with more than 3.6 million passengers expected to have passed through Malta’s terminal in the previous twelve months.
RS2 Software plc’s recent positive run was interrupted today with a 2.4% drop back to the €0.82 on a single trade of 6,300 shares. Nonetheless, the IT equity is still one of the top performing equities during the first few sessions of 2013 with a 10.8% jump on the back of new international contracts which are expected to boost the Company’s profitability.
Meanwhile, Crimsonwing plc held on to its 5-year high of €0.57 on volumes of 27,325 shares. Crimsonwing remains the top performer for 2013 with a 16.3% jump since the beginning of the new year. Similarly, MaltaPost plc held on to its 7-month high of €0.92 across two trades totalling just over 6,800 shares. The postal operator will be settling the final net dividend of €0.04 per share, in cash or new shares, on Thursday 17 January.
On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index reached yet another 26-month high of 1,007.779 points despite the continued surge in the benchmark 10-year German Bund yields which touched an 11-week high of 1.6%. The surge in benchmark Eurozone yields mainly reflects yesterday’s comments by the President of the European Central Bank in which he expressed his satisfaction with respect to the stabilisation of European financial markets. It is also related to the strong demand in the first bond auctions of 2013 by Spain and Italy that lowered their respective borrowing costs to levels last seen months ago.