The MSE Equity Price Index moved 0.59% lower to 3,581.590 points on Thursday, reflecting the declines of BMIT, GO, BOV, IHI and Malita. Meanwhile, MIA closed unchanged as overall trading activity amounted to €0.13 million.
BMIT Technologies plc was the most actively traded equity as it shed 2.2% to the €0.45 level on volumes totalling 117,000 shares.
BMIT’s parent company – GO plc – eased by 1.4% to the €2.80 level across four trades totalling 9,275 shares.
Bank of Valletta plc fell by 1.1% to €0.93 across two trades totalling 15,000 shares.
International Hotel Investments plc dropped by 2.4% to a 6-month low of €0.61 on two trades totalling 24,500 shares.
A single trade of 3,356 shares pulled the share price of Malita Investments plc 14.3% lower to the lowest level in over eight years of €0.60.
Malta International Airport plc traded flat at the €5.65 level across seven deals totalling 4,159 shares.
On Wednesday, MIA announced that during the month of December, it welcomed 421,468 passengers which is equivalent to 88.3% of the movements handled in the same month in 2019 and marks the strongest recovery rate achieved since the start of the pandemic.
MIA explained that the seat load factor of 81% indicated that the demand for air travel remained strong. Overall, passenger movements during the entire 12-month period of 2022 amounted to 5.85 million, which is higher than the updated 2022 full-year target of 5.7 million passenger movements, but still 20% below the full-year traffic for 2019 of 7.31 million passenger movements.
The RF MGS Index advanced by 0.80% to 885.739 points, boosted by strong gains in longer-term MGS reflecting the downward movement in yields across the longer-end of the yield curve. The widely anticipated inflation data from the US pushed today showed that the annual inflation rate in December 2022 was at 6.5%, the lowest it has been in the US since October 2021 and in line with expectations.
Meanwhile, the core inflation measure, which does not account for food and energy prices, eased to a 1-year low of 5.7% also in line with forecasts. Also today, the European Central Bank published an economic bulletin outlining the most recent economic, financial and monetary developments. The ECB stated that the eurozone economy may contract in Q4 2022 and Q1 2023, but the euro area economy is expected to grow by 0.5% throughout 2023.