The MSE Share Index erased yesterday’s marginal decline as it rebounded by 0.24 per cent to a near five-week high of 4,466.623 points. Trading activity was spread across ten equities with four of them registering gains, five stayed unchanged and only Malta Properties closed lower. The performance of the Index during the past five trading sessions was the best in the last five weeks as it registered a weekly upturn of 0.93 per cent. Furthermore, following the monthly declines in July (-2.0 per cent) and August (-0.68 per cent), the Index gained 0.6 per cent in September. Year-to-date, the Index is up by 0.8 per cent.
The most actively traded equity today was Bank of Valletta plc as 74,809 shares (valued at nearly €0.17 million – representing 62.5 per cent of the total value of equities traded) left the share price unchanged at its near five-month high of €2.26. On Monday, BOV announced that its forthcoming Annual General Meeting will be held on Friday 16 December 2016. Today marks the financial year-end for BOV. The Bank usually publishes its financial statements by the end of October.
Also among the large companies, International Hotel Investments plc maintained the €0.635 level on insignificant volumes.
Medserv plc and Mapfre Middlesea plc also finished the day flat at €1.55 and €2.10 respectively on light volumes.
Similarly, Tigne’ Mall plc maintained the €1.065 level on volumes totalling 37,500 shares.
In contrast, Malta Properties Company plc registered its first loss in the last six trading sessions as it slipped by 1.8 per cent from its four-month high of €0.57 back to €0.56 across 2,400 shares.
Meanwhile, a single deal of 2,900 shares lifted the equity of FIMBank plc 2.2 per cent higher to the USD0.93 level.
Simonds Farsons Cisk plc climbed to a new all-time high of €7.05 (+0.7 per cent) on reduced trading activity. On Wednesday, Farsons published its interim results showing a 20.1 per cent jump in pre-tax profits to a record of €5.8 million. The improved results came largely from the ‘Brewing, production & sale of branded beers & beverages’ segment arising from the solid performance of Malta’s economy together with significant growth in tourist arrivals. The Directors declared an unchanged net interim dividend of €0.0333 per share to all shareholders as at close of trading on Monday 3 October. The interim dividend will be paid on Wednesday 19 October.
GO plc extended its recent run by a further 0.6 per cent to a new four-month high of €3.22 across 4,000 shares.
RS2 Software plc recaptured the €1.64 level on volumes totalling 22,132 shares.
On the bond market, the RF MGS Index extended yesterday’s decline by a further 0.08 per cent to 1,174.288 points reflecting widened spreads of Italian and Spanish government bonds compared to the German benchmark. In fact, while the 10-year German Bund fell to an intra-day eleven-week low of -0.161 per cent (from -0.115 per cent of yesterday), the corresponding yields of Italy and Spain remained relatively unchanged. On the economic front, recent readings showed that German inflation reached its highest level since May 2015 while Spanish inflation rose for the first time since May 2014.
On the other hand, eurozone core inflation remained stable at 0.8 per cent year-on-year, still far below the European Central Bank’s inflationary target of close but below 2.0 per cent. Meanwhile, international financial media made reference to a report in which it was quoted as saying that the German economy is set to grow at its fastest pace in five years in 2016. The forecasts raised the estimate for GDP growth in Germany to +1.9 per cent in 2016 from an earlier estimate of +1.6 per cent. They also said that GDP would grow by 1.4 per cent in 2017 and 1.6 per cent in 2018.
This article is provided by Rizzo Farrugia stockbrokers.