CRH and Smurfit Kappa fall as Iseq sheds over 2%

DUBLIN REPORT: Iseq:2,715.62 (–60.12) Settlement date:November 15th

FEARS OVER the impact of the decline of Irish Government bonds and the banks’ continuing woes left most leading stocks trailing in Dublin yesterday.

The banks were once again hugely unpopular with investors, but it was falls in both CRH and Smurfit Kappa, which have much higher weightings than the financials, that did much of the damage to the index, which was down more than 2 per cent at 2,715.62.

Shares in AIB sank to 35.5 cent, a fall of 5.84 cent as investors ditched between 3.5 million and four million of its shares in Dublin and London.

Irish Life & Permanent was next worst hit, dropping close to 3 per cent to 91.7 cent. The retail bank is a focus of investor concern because of its exposure to possible large-scale defaults in the domestic mortgage market. About three million shares in the institution changed hands.

Bank of Ireland dipped 0.71 per cent to close at 41.7 cent after about 35 million of its shares were traded between Dublin and London.

CRH, which benefited from a good response to an interim management statement published on Tuesday that saw it close more than 4 per cent up at €14.46, dropped by 5.57 per cent to close at €13.66.

Dealers said that the international building materials group suffered from a combination of profit taking and yet another bout of weak sentiment towards its sector.

Smurfit Kappa fell 3.59 per cent to €7.78 despite producing third quarter results that were in line with market expectations and showed both earnings and pricing holding up well.

Exploration group Tullow Oil, which published a broadly positive trading statement, was one of the day’s few bright spots. It gained 1.26 per cent to close at €14.50 and rose at a similar rate in London to end the day at £12.47.