The MSE Equity Price Index ended the week considerably lower as it dropped by 1.8% to 3,955.335 points. The decline was led by the slump in the share price of FIMBank which together with the negative performances of HSBC, BOV and RS2 offset the uplift in Lombard.
Meanwhile, five companies ended unchanged as trading activity contracted back to below €0.1 million.
FIMBank plc lost 18.9% to the USD0.30 level on a total of 79,000 shares. Last week, Fitch downgraded its rating on FIMBank to ‘B’ whilst maintaining a ‘Negative’ outlook.
HSBC Bank Malta plc (8,410 shares) and Bank of Valletta plc (1,930 shares) erased their recent gains as they retracted by 5.3% and 4.7% to €0.805 and €0.91 respectively.
A single deal of 2,580 shares forced the ordinary share price of RS2 Software plc to move 1% lower to the €1.94 level.
In the property segment, Malta Properties Company plc (48,399 shares) and Tigné Mall plc (9,298 shares) ended the week unchanged at €0.55 and €0.75 respectively.
A single deal of 4,000 shares left the equity of PG plc at the €2.24 level.
Simonds Farsons Cisk plc retained at the €8.70 level across 1,375 shares whilst GO plc held on to the €3.38 level on trivial volumes.
Lombard Bank Malta plc added 2.1% to the €1.95 level on light volumes totalling 1,000 shares.
The RF MGS Index rose for the first time in four sessions as it inched 0.04% higher to 1,102.843 points. Today, the European Central Bank (‘ECB’) said that it will grant lenders about €70 billion of capital relief by extending a measure designed to help them keep supplying credit to the pandemic-struck economy. The ECB said it will allow lenders to continue to exclude deposits held at central banks when calculating their leverage ratio for nine months until the end of March 2022. The relief would give a particular benefit to banks in France, Germany and the Netherlands, which tend to have more central bank deposits than those in southern Europe. Meanwhile, from a data perspective, the German Produce Price Index rose by 1.5% month-on-month in May, vastly outstripping the 0.7% consensus forecast.