MARKET REPORT:THE ISEQ index of Irish shares plunged back into the red yesterday after Friday's record one-day surge with financial stocks leading the way as they gave up some of the gains.
After a weak start, the market continued to find itself under pressure throughout the day and eventually closed 3.88 per cent, or 160.31 points weaker at 3,976.01.
Investors remained cautious about the US government's $700 billion bailout package to take bad mortgage assets from the country's struggling banks, resulting in weakness among bank stocks throughout Europe, where the index was down around 4 per cent.
Irish bank shares were no exception. Anglo Irish Bank's share price tumbled by more than 16 per cent as it dropped back 90 cent to €4.70, while Bank of Ireland was 51 cent weaker - a fall of 9.8 per cent - to €4.69. AIB closed the day down more than 5 per cent as it shed 33.1 cent to €5.90.
However, Irish Life Permanent managed to buck the trend. Interest from a number of buyers in the stock saw it surge by 4.27 per cent, a gain of 26.2 cent to €6.40.
As oil pushed back above $100 a barrel, Ryanair's share price tumbled by more than 6 per cent, or 17 cent, to €2.55. But Dragon Oil benefited from the oil spike, surging by nearly 30 per cent, picking up 72.4 cent to €3.29.
Elan also had a good day on the back of good news from phase III trials of its multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri, which saw it gain 33 cent to €7.97, a rise of 4.32 per cent.
Despite posting pretax profits of €218 million for the year ending July 31st on revenues of €3.13 billion, food company Aryzta gave up early gains to eventually close 10 cent weaker at €33.50.
Construction stocks were generally weaker, with CRH shedding 81 cent to €16.89, Grafton more than 6 per cent weaker at €3.85 and Kingspan falling 45 cent to €7.05.
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