Local investors decided to sell equities and book profits during yesterday's trading session.
HSBC Bank Malta declined the most in monetary terms as 9,680 shares were sold across 11 transactions. The price never traded at Tuesday's closing level but declined steadily from Lm6.39c9 to Lm6.33c where the session finally came to an end.
Bank of Valletta declined 5c or 0.8 per cent with investors booking profits following the previous session's record close at Lm5.60c. During the day a total of 11,807 shares were exchanged across 17 trades with the initial buying activity thinning up during the session and succumbing to modest selling pressure.
Buying activity in FIMBank saw the shares top the gainers board. Trading was for just 8,000 shares exchanged across three transactions with the price moving higher by 2.8 per cent to close at $1.80c.
On the contrary the day's biggest loser was Maltacom which dropped 1.7 per cent on low volume activity. In fact just a few shares shy of 7,000 were exchanged across seven transactions squeezing the price to close at Lm1.56c1.
Malta International Airport moved higher by the slimmest of margins with demand for shares remaining strong. During the session a total of 13,442 shares were exchanged across four transactions, all at the Lm1.40c1 level.
Simonds Farsons Cisk closed the day better by 0.2c at Lm0.85c2. The day's activity consisted of 600 shares which were sold in rapid succession across three transactions to bids which stood in wait at higher prices than the previous close.
Tokyo shares slip on profit-taking
Europe's bourses sank from three-year highs set in the previous session after hawkish comments from a US Federal Reserve official and as heavyweight energy stocks fell. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 0.7 per cent to 1,233.36 with the Xetra Dax in Frankfurt off 0.9 per cent to 5,092.13 and the Paris CAC-40 off 0.7 per cent to 4,617.55.
After the sell of the previous session, Wall Street opened only slightly lower yesterday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.1 per cent to 10,432.15 and the Nasdaq Composite off 0.2 per cent to 2,134.79.
London equity markets fell sharply yesterday. Miners, oils and banks were all major fallers as the market saw a broad-based retreat. The blue-chip FTSE 100 lost 43.9 points or 0.9 per cent, its worst single-day slump in several weeks, to stand at 5,450.0. The FTSE 250 fared even worse, down 77.7 points or one per cent to 7,901.9.
Japanese stocks fell yesterday as investors questioned the valuations of recent strong risers as well as companies with questionable earnings prospects. The Nikkei 225 fell 0.4 per cent to 13,689.89. Topix finished down 0.9 per cent at 1,409.67.
Some domestically focused sectors, many of which have risen considerably this year on expectations that Japan's economic recovery will be sustained, fell sharply. Real estate plunged 2.4 per cent. Electricity and gas fell 0.9 per cent.