Fresh sell orders emerged during this morning's session sending Bank of Valletta plc's share price to a new seven-week low of €2.15 before partially recovering to close today's trading session at the €2.19 level.
Today's closing price still represents a 0.5% drop from yesterday's close.
A total of 59,200 shares changed hands across 15 trades. Yesterday afternoon BOV announced that the latest EU-wide bank stress results, published by the European Banking Authority, confirmed that the bank enjoyed a strong Tier 1 Capital ratio (a measure of capital adequacy by comparing shareholders' capital to risk-weighted assets) of 10.6 per cent, which is significantly above the minimum of nine per cent required by European regulation.
BOV is shortly expected to publish its September 2012 full-year results.
Meanwhile, the share price of Simonds Farsons Cisk plc was supported at its four-year high of €2.30 as another 4,000 shares changed hands at this level. The recently declared net interim dividend of 1c33 per share will now be paid on October 19.
Similarly, the shares of RS2 Software plc maintained their multi-year high of 60c on a single trade of 2,240 shares. Last Sunday, RS2 announced that it was awarded a new licence agreement for Latin America with a value of €5 million.
On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index eased minimally lower to 998.031 points as the Central Bank lowered its bid prices for the medium and long term government paper.
This contrasted with this morning's dip in eurozone yields below the 1.45 per cent level.
However, this afternoon, the benchmark 10-year German bund yields shot up to the 1.465 per cent level on speculation that the Eurozone will provide insurance to whoever buys Spanish government bonds.
During today's monetary policy meetings, both the European Central Bank and the Bank of England maintained interest rates unchanged at 0.75 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively.
www.rizzofarrugia.com