Following the declines of the previous two trading sessions, the share index today rebounded by 0.23 per cent to 4,476.007 points reflecting the gains in the share prices of BOV and GO which outweighed the declines in RS2 and Farsons.
Trading activity weakened considerably from yesterday’s one-week high of €0.41 million as only €0.12 million worth of shares changed hands.
Bank of Valletta advanced by 1.3 per cent to the €2.30 level (the highest since mid-March 2015) across 14,450 shares. BOV’s financial statements as at September 30 will be published by the end of October.
Positive sentiment towards GO persisted as the equity climbed 0.9 per cent to yet another five-month high of €3.25 on volumes totalling 8,800 shares.
On the Alternative Companies List, Loqus Holdings gained 2.2 per cent to the 13c9 level on trivial volumes.
Shallow volumes were also recorded in the equities of International Hotel Investments and MaltaPost which maintained the 63c5 and €1.85 levels respectively.
HSBC failed to hold on to its intra-day high of €1.67 (+1.8 per cent) as it closed flat at €1.64. A total of 10,123 shares were traded today.
Meanwhile, RS2 Software dropped to its lowest level in four weeks as it slipped by 1.9 per cent to the €1.57 level across 8,600 shares.
Simonds Farsons Cisk extended yesterday’s decline by a minimal 0.1 per cent to €7 across 3,633 shares. The recently declared net interim dividend of 3c33 per share will be paid on October 19.
On the bond market, the RF MGS Index moved lower for the sixth consecutive day as it retreated by a further 0.18% to a two-week low of 1,168.615 points.
Euro zone sovereign bond yields experienced heightened volatility since yesterday. The 10-year benchmark German Bund yell fell to -0.037 per cent from -0.029 per cent yesterday after hitting zero per cent.
On the economic front, fresh data showed that German factory orders rose more-than-expected in September to a seasonally adjusted one per cent from 0.3 per cent in the preceding month.
Analysts had expected an improvement of only 0.2 per cent. Meanwhile, an account of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) monetary policy meeting which took place early last September revealed that ECB President Mario Draghi has the support of the bank’s Governing Council should he wish to extend the €80 billion-a-month quantitative easing programme currently scheduled to end in March next year.
The ECB’s Governing Council agreed the QE programme would run until “March 2017, or beyond, if necessary”.
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