Anglo suffers again as Iseq experiences mixed day

DUBLIN REPORT Iseq: 2,502.48 (+22.92):IT WAS another day of decidedly mixed fortunes for the Irish Stock Exchange yesterday with Anglo Irish Bank suffering the most pain.

The Iseq overall index closed at 2,502.48, a gain just 0.92 per cent. The overall index had been up as much as 3.5 per cent during mid-morning trading but gave up most of those gains in the afternoon.

Following Anglo Irish Bank's results this week, which showed it was putting aside €500 million to cover potential bad debts, investors seem to have given up hope on the bank, on the back of substantial analyst downgrades.

A huge amount of sellers of the stock were active yesterday, with 26.7 million shares changing hands in Dublin alone.

That drove the share price down 28.4 per cent to close at €0.48.

Anglo is now the smallest of the four quoted Irish banks with a market capitalisation of €364 million.

AIB and Bank of Ireland were also down on the day. Four million AIB shares were traded and it closed at €2.05, a loss of 6.4 per cent. Bank of Ireland was down by a similar amount to €1.02.

Irish Life Permanent was the only bank to gain ground, adding 5.5 per cent to close on €1.52.

News of Ryanair's assurances on its offer for Aer Lingus had a positive effect on the stock. It added 1.38 per cent to finish the session on €2.94, while its takeover target was up 5.47 per cent to €1.35.

Despite data from the Builders Merchants Federation in the UK, which showed merchanting volumes in October were down a whopping 17.2 per cent, Grafton added 7.4 per cent to €2.293.

Building materials group CRH also performed well, gaining 2.67 per cent to finish at €17.66.