The Malta Stock Exchange witnessed a broad based decline on the week, as financial services stocks finished mixed and IT services stocks closed lower. The index lost 1.42 per cent on the week to close at 3449.320.

In the banking sector, FIMBank plc witnessed the heaviest

losses, closing almost 6.5 per cent lower at $1.01 in light

volume of 6,675 shares across four deals. HSBC Bank Malta plc also finished lower, dropping 3.3 per cent, to close at €2.93, in 61 deals of 87,417 shares. Other banks to trade on the week were Lombard Bank Malta plc, which lost 1.9 per cent in market value, to close at €2.865, and Bank of Valletta plc, which has been bucking the negative banking trend, and ended the week up 1.5 per cent, to close at €3.30.

The IT services and communications sector was also down on the week, as Loqus Holdings plc shares suffered a precipitous drop, falling almost 19.4 per cent to close at €0.15 in a single trade of 2,548 shares. Shares in the IT services company have more than halved since they reached their recent high of €0.32 in March. GO plc, meanwhile, also finished in negative territory on the week, down 3.4 per cent to close at €2.01 in seven trades totalling 9,500 shares.

The tourism sector had a mixed week, with Malta International Airport plc finishing marginally up, to close at €1.58, while International Hotel Investments was down 1.2 per cent to close at €0.82. On Thursday, MIA announced that passenger

movements for the month of May had risen by 19.3 per cent, compared with the same month in 2009. Passenger movements for the first five months of 2010, meanwhile, were up 7.7 per cent, compared with the same period last year, despite the traffic disruptions caused by the Icelandic volcano earlier in the year.

Simonds Farsons Cisk, whose recent bond was oversubscribed within minutes, lost 2.7 per cent, to close at €1.80 in light trading of 733 shares across two deals.

Middlesea Insurance has, of late, bounced solidly back from its recent lows after announcing its financial results for the year ending December 31, 2009. The Floriana-based insurer gained another 0.6 per cent this week in three trades totalling 14,600 shares to close at €0.86.

MaltaPost plc, meanwhile, gained 3.3 per cent on the week, after coming off its recent highs of €0.90 to rebound back to €0.899.

The remaining stock to trade on the week was Medserv plc, which closed unchanged at €4.30 in a single trade of 400 shares.