Rebounds in HSBC & GO lift MSE Share Index
The MSE Share Index edging 0.5% higher during this morning's session following the 1% drop registered yesterday. Today's rebound was mainly due to the 1.2% recovery in the share price of HSBC Bank Malta plc to the €2.58 level on a single trade of 2,000 shares.
Similarly, GO plc jumped 5.3% today to regain the €1.00 level. Most trades took place at the €0.95 level before a final trade of just 500 shares at €1.00. Investors now awaiting the outcome of Forthnet's Extraordinary General Meeting scheduled to be held on 15 December. During this EGM, Forthnet's shareholders will be asked to approve a number of changes to the company's capital structure and a €30 million rights issue in line with the conditions of the latest €90 million bond loan.
Meanwhile, Bank of Valletta plc ended this morning's session unchanged at the €2.50 level on volumes of almost 30,000 shares. BOV is scheduled to hold its Annual General Meeting on Friday 16 December.
RS2 software plc also closed unchanged at the €0.59 level across three trades totalling 18,000 shares. In its latest communication to the market, the Directors said that they expect the overall performance for 2011 to compare very favourably to that of 2010.
The only other active equity, MaltaPost plc, closed in negative territory with its share price slipping 0.5% lower to €0.975 despite still trading with the entitlement to the final net dividend of €0.04 per share. A total of 8,860 shares traded today. This was the first time that the equity was active since the publication of the postal operator's full-year results which revealed an 8.7% drop in after-tax profits to €1.9 million. Further details available at http://rizzofarrugia.com/news-events/2011/full-year-results-mtp08/. MaltaPost's equity will turn ex-dividend as from next Wednesday 14 December.
On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index eased 0.1% lower in line with the recovery in yields to the 2.24% level following yesterday's warning by the S&P of a possible credit rating downgrade of 15 of the 17 eurozone countries including Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Malta. The S&P's warning also impacted the euro which dropped close to the USD1.33 level against the US Dollar but recovered to above the USD1.34 following positive economic data from Germany and increased confidence that EU leaders will manage to reach a solution with respect to the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis.
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