The majority of the equities that were active during today's trading session moved lower leading to a 0.3% drop in the MSE Share Index to 2,975.928 points. Most notably, the share price of Bank of Valletta plc failed to hold on to last week's close of €2.08 as it shed 1.4% to drop back to the €2.05 level on volumes of just under 30,000 shares. Similarly, HSBC Bank Malta plc retreated by 0.4% to yet another 37-month low of €2.48 across four trades totalling 42,911 shares. Also in the financial sector, FIMBank plc eased by 1.8% to the US$0.835 level on total activity amounting to 48,274 shares.
MaltaPost plc also closed lower with the share price easing by 1% to the €0.95 level on activity of over 85,000 shares. The postal operator recently published its half-year results revealing a significant drop in profitability to €0.5 million mainly due to a change in tariffs by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) which led to a considerable increase in direct mail costs.
Elsewhere in the local equity market, Medserv plc and Grand Harbour Marina plc also in closed negative territory as their respective share prices closed at new 2012 lows on shallow volumes.
Meanwhile, the equity of International Hotel Investments plc was the only positive performer with a 1.2% increase to the €0.85 level across nine trades totalling 18,530 shares.
On the local bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index edged marginally higher to 989.275 points despite a marginal recovery in Eurozone yields since last Friday. The benchmark yields across Europe edged marginally higher today after Greek polls revealed that the pro-bailout party has an advantage over the other parties ahead of the fresh general elections set to take place in mid-June. This also helped the euro which recovered from last Friday's multi-year lows against the US Dollar. Nonetheless, concerns over Spain's banking sector is on the rise following Bankia's request for a €19 billion bailout. This led to a widening of the spread between the benchmark German Bund yield and the Spanish government yield to a record high of over 500 basis points.
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