The MSE Equity Price Index trended lower for the third consecutive day as it slipped by a further 0.51% to 3,656.099 points. Several equities finished the day lower whilst only BMIT moved in positive territory. Meanwhile, four shares ended unchanged as overall trading activity in equities improved to €0.23 million compared to just €0.1 million yesterday.
The majority of today’s trading activity took place in the equity of Simonds Farsons Cisk plc which stayed at the €7.00 level across 20,000 shares having a market value of €0.14 million.
Malta International Airport plc and Malta Properties Company plc traded flat at €5.95 and €0.515 respectively albeit on light volumes. Yesterday, MIA announced that during the month of May, passenger movements increased by 8% from the previous month to 554,820 which, in turn, is only 17.7% lower than the amount of 674,101 passengers welcomed in the same period in 2019.
Whilst passenger traffic recovered in line with the increase in seat capacity, the seat load factor of 81.4% achieved in May 2022 was the highest since October 2019 and even superior to the level of 80.3% recorded in May 2019. Moreover, the total number of passenger movements since the start of 2022, amounting to 1.74 million, has now reached the level of traffic recorded in all of 2020.
Two deals totalling 30,000 shares left the share price of VBL plc at the €0.25 level.
BMIT Technologies plc was the only positive performing equity today with a gain of 2.1% to recapture the €0.48 level across 66,958 shares.
BMIT’s parent company – GO plc – eased by 0.6% to the €3.08 level on a total of 4,060 shares.
The two largest banks – Bank of Valletta plc and HSBC Bank Malta plc – also performed negatively today. BOV retracted by 1.2% to the €0.85 level on 15,883 shares whilst HSBC lost 2.7% to a 19-month low of €0.73 across 22,825 shares.
Also among the large companies by market value, the ordinary shares of RS2 Software plc dropped by 1.2% to the €1.62 level albeit on just 2,055 shares.
Low trading activity also took place in the equities of International Hotel Investments plc and MaltaPost plc. IHI eased by 0.7% to the €0.725 level whilst MaltaPost moved back to the €1.00 level (-2%).
The RF MGS Index extended its negative trend as it slid by a further 0.94% to a fresh all-time low of 931.388 points. Sovereign bond yields in the euro zone continued to surge amid fears that major centra banks will have to be more aggressive in tightening monetary policy amid the prevailing high inflation.
Meanwhile, a new study published by the European Central Bank showed that the eurozone economy is likely to avoid a recession in 2022 as growth is expected to accelerate noticeably in Q3 and Q4 2022. The study also showed that the ECB’s deposit facility rate is anticipated to rise to 0.25% by the end of this year from the current level of minus 0.5%. Furthermore, additional rate hikes are
projected to take place in 2023 and 2024, thus increasing the central bank’s benchmark interest rate to the 1.25% level by mid-2024.