During today’s trading session the share prices of Bank of Valletta plc and HSBC Bank Malta plc closed in negative territory forcing the MSE Share Index to decline by 0.6 per cent.

All other active equities closed unchanged including International Hotel Investments plc which held on to yesterday’s seven per cent gain. The strong recovery in IHI’s share price helped the equity market close the week in positive territory (+0.59 per cent) above the 3,500-point level.

BOV’s equity reversed all of this week’s gains as it fell back to the €3.26 level during the dying minutes of today’s session. The equity touched an intra-day high of €3.30,1 before closing 1.2 per cent lower at €3.26. Volumes declined to only 3,358 shares today from the higher levels of activity in previous sessions. Likewise, the share price of HSBC dropped 1% to €2.97 on low volumes.

Further to yesterday’s seven per cent gain in the share price of International Hotel Investments plc, a further 26,291 shares were exchanged at the 2010 high of €0.90. IHI will be convening an Extraordinary General Meeting on August 27 for shareholders to approve a 4% bonus share issue and a buy-back option by the company at the €1 level.

There was only a muted reaction to the interim results publication of Middlesea Insurance plc yesterday afternoon. The Middlesea Group returned to a profitable position as it reported a half-year profit of €3.22 million. Only 500 Middlesea shares traded today at the €1.03 level with further bids remaining unsatisfied at this level.

The local bond market remained particularly active with most Malta Government Stock prices edging higher. The new MGS issues are expected to commence trading next week.

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