HSBC recorded a profit before tax of €95m for the financial year ended 31 December 2012, representing an increase of 8% on 2011, whilst earnings per share climbed from 19c7 in 2011 to 21c1 in 2012.  The Board is recommending a final gross dividend of 7.9c per share to shareholders who are on the Company’s register as at 19 March 2013.  Share price moved 1.82% higher to close at €2.79.

Bank of Valletta also registered gains, up 0.92% across seven deals to close at a 52-week high of €2.29,9.

Middlesea Insurance placed as the best performer of the day as the equity gained 13.92% to close at a 63-week high of €0.90.

RS2 touched another fresh all-time high of €0.91 as 12,533 shares were executed across four deals.

MIDI traded in high volumes as 200,000 shares were negotiated pushing the equity 3.33% higher to close at a 32-week high of €0.31.

Malta International Airport moved 1.38% down from its one-year high of €1.81 on a total volume of 55,100 shares to close at €1.78,5.

One single deal of 4,000 shares was executed in GO shares dragging the share price 0.39% lower to close at the €1.40 level and another deal was struck in Plaza pushing the equity 0.68% higher to €0.58,9.

Malita Investments placed as the worst performer of the day, down 3.77% across one deal to close at €0.51.

Lombard, FIMBank and MaltaPost were the other active equities of the day with all of them closing the session unchanged.

The contents do not constitute a solicitation of the purchase or sale of securities.  Although HSBC makes every reasonable effort to do so, it makes no representations that the information presented is accurate, complete or timely.  Accordingly, HSBC shall not be liable for any decisions made or actions taken in reliance on such information.  Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance and the value of investments may go down as well as up.