The MSE Equity Price Index eased by 0.02% on Wednesday to 4,375.177 points, reflecting the slight decline in the share price of HSBC which outweighed the gains in MIA and PG while several other equities closed the day unchanged on light volumes.

Overall, trading activity improved as a total of €0.24 million worth of shares changed hands.

HSBC Bank Malta plc moved back to the €1.82 level (-0.5%) on two deals totalling 5,106 shares.

In contrast, Malta International Airport plc added 0.4% to regain the €5.00 level across 10,000 shares.

PG plc also trended higher today with a gain of 0.8% to the €1.31 level albeit on shallow volumes.

Low volumes were also transacted in six other equities, all of which traded unchanged. These included FIMBank plc ($0.52), GO plc (€3.40), Malita Investments plc (€0.86), MaltaPost plc (€1.70), Malta Properties Company plc (€0.52) and Mapfre Middlesea plc (€1.94).

Bank of Valletta plc retained the €1.75 level after recovering from an intra-day low of €1.72 (-1.7%). A total of 48,385 shares traded.

MIDI plc (48,444 shares) and Tigne’ Mall plc (52,000) also closed the day flat at €0.42 and €0.93 respectively. Thursday is the last day before the equity of Tigne’ Mall starts trading without the entitlement to a final net dividend of €0.012875 per share.

Meanwhile, MIDI plc on Wednesday afternoon published its updated Financial Analysis Summary showing that the company is anticipating revenue of €67.8 million during 2018, Ebitda of €25 million, and a profit after tax of €23.5 million which will help the net asset value per share rise to €0.47.

The RF MGS Index added a further 0.1% to a one-month high, mostly reflecting movements in the yields of peripheral countries which trended lower today compared to a rise in the benchmark German Bund yields. In the US, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell was quoted as saying that the economic dynamics of the world’s largest economy support the central bank’s outlook “for continued gradual increases in the federal funds rate”. Mr Powell also made reference to the “particularly robust” US labour market and noted that inflation was now close to the central bank’s target of 2%.

www.rizzofarrugia.com

Stock markets are volatile and subject to fluctuations which cannot be reasonably foreseen. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

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