Investors battled to purchase equities in the three largest listed companies on the Malta Stock Exchange during yesterday's trading session, helping the index shoot up to a new all time high.
HSBC Bank Malta was the day's top gainer as 3,425 shares were purchased across 14 trades pushing the price higher by a considerable 19c8 or 2.5 per cent.
Trading in Bank of Valletta amounted to 22,626 shares which were exchanged across 45 transactions. The equity immediately started climbing higher as the opening bell rung out and gains were only slightly diminished in the dying minutes of the session. Nevertheless, the equity closed 5c higher at Lm7.40.
Lombard Bank continued to lose ground, declining a further 5c on merely 20 shares to close at Lm8.20, while conversely FIMBank surged to an all time high of $2.06 on consistent buying activity.
Investors scrambled for Middlesea Insurance shares as the equity rallied in excess of two per cent to the Lm3.98,1 level, while Global Financial Services Group tumbled back down to Lm1.30 as 5,000 shares were sold across two transactions.
Elsewhere, Maltacom witnessed heavy trading as 113,420 shares, carrying a total consideration of Lm216,135, were exchanged across 30 trades pushing the price 3c higher in the process to close at its recent high of Lm1.93.
Otherwise, activity in Malta International Airport remained robust with 119,711 shares being struck across 23 deals. MIA shares have jammed to the Lm1.55 level since mid-December 2005 and the price has barely barged during this phase.
London pushes higher after bid for P&O
London equity markets were in positive territory by mid-session yesterday led by P&O which was strengthened by news late on Tuesday that it had received a conditional £3.53 billion approach from Singapore's PSA International. PSA, a unit of Singapore's Temasek, moved to trump DP World's £3.33bn offer for the British container ports and ferries operator. Shares in P&O, the world's fourth largest container terminal operator, gained 5.3 per cent to 493 and a half pence as traders forecast that Dubai's DB Ports would return with another offer.
US stocks were set for a cautious start to trading yesterday after a profit warning from chemicals group and Dow component DuPont.
With less than an hour to go before the market opens, S&P 500 futures were up 0.6 points, above fair value, with Dow Jones industrial Average futures gaining four points.
Blaming the impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and lower-than-expected sales and rising costs in crop protection chemicals, performance coatings and surfaces, DuPont slashed its fourth-quarter earnings expectations from 20-25 cents per share to 10 cents per share.
European equity markets were higher yesterday, recovering losses of the previous session as the corporate news flow increased, with a number of companies reporting quarterly sales, while oil major BP announced output data. By mid-afternoon, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 was up 0.2 per cent to 1,303.1, while Frankfurt's Xetra Dax added 0.5 per cent to 5,519.18. In Paris, the CAC 40 was 0.1 per cent higher at 4,867.91 and London's FTSE 100 climbed 0.5 per cent to 5,716.3.
The Japanese stock market staged an abrupt recovery in the afternoon, continuing its strong performance of the previous week.