The mid-week session at the Malta Stock Exchange opened in the afternoon as a power failure prevented the usual morning trading to take place.
When the market did open at 1.30 p.m. for a shortened session, HSBC Bank Malta shares immediately shot up and kept on progressing north until the end of the session. Lack of supply and aggressive buying activity saw the price better by 13c or 1.9 per cent to close the day at the Lm6.90 mark.
Demand for Bank of Valletta was met with a largish chunk of supply, which was not initially present with the market opened. Bids in the market were constantly met with a flow of supply and at the end of the session the price closed at parity with Tuesday's closing level of Lm6.72.
Lombard Bank ended the day in negative territory as investors sold a total of 1,895 shares across seven trades down to the Lm7 level.
Activity in Maltacom dwindled when compared to previous sessions. A few sellers have also started to appear and in the end the price declined 0c2 to close at Lm1.76.
Demand for Middlesea Insurance saw 2,619 shares being exchanged at a 4c premium, while on the contrary largish chunks of supply in Malta International Airport saw the price decline by a cent to close at Lm1.60c.
A purchase order for 7,444 shares in International Hotel Investments was executed in rapid succession across four deals, clearing all supply up to the €0.79 level.
Tokyo shares mixed as banks lose ground
Europe's bourses slipped yesterday as news of aggressive expansion by Deutsche Telekom in 2006 weighed on the telecom sector and a negative rating for Renault pushed carmakers into reverse. At noon, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 0.1 per cent to 1,225.88, with the CAC-40 in Paris 0.3 per cent weaker at 4,492.01. The Xetra Dax in Frankfurt was up 0.2 per cent to 5,018.13.
London's main equities market slipped into the red as the effect of several blue chip companies trading without further rights to their latest dividend payments balanced lingering strength in the telecoms sector. The FTSE 100 fell 0.2 to 5,450.0 while the mid-cap FTSE 250 surrendered 0.1 per cent to 8,003.7 as seven of its member shares went ex-dividend.
Overnight in New York, bearish corporate forecasts dragged on the main indices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.4 per cent lower at 10,539.72. The broader S&P 500 was off 0.4 per cent at 1,218.59 and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.3 per cent to 2,172.07. Investors in Japanese shares indulged in some severe repositioning yesterday, driving down the price of many domestic stocks but pushing up the value of many export stocks. A new bearishness towards the banks and bullishness towards tech stocks drove a wedge between the bank-heavy Topix and the tech-heavy Nikkei 225. The Topix ended 0.7 per cent down at 1,487.71. But the Nikkei managed a 0.3 per cent rise to 14,072.20.