ISE flat but financials weather a difficult day

It was another difficult day for financial stocks today, although the market as a whole remained largely flat, closing up by 5.13 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 2,679.99.

Anglo Irish Bank was the worst of the bunch, and it gave up 44 cent, or 25.4 per cent, to fall back to €1.29. Brokers were unable to give a specific reason for the decline, but cited falling confidence in the stock as well as investors moving out of the stock before the bank’s results in early December.

Following Irish Life & Permanent’s removal from the Dow Jones dividend index, it saw a day of heavy selling, but with buyers on the other side, it held up well considering and closed down by 15 cent, or 8.8 per cent, at €1.55.

Bank of Ireland also struggled, and despite holding up well for most of the day, it fell back sharply in late afternoon to close down 13 cent, or 10.4 per cent, at €1.09, moving perilously close to the €1 level.

AIB again held up the most out of the four main financial stocks, losing just 3 cent, or 1.0 per cent, to finish the day at €2.95.

Elsewhere, construction firm CRH continues to “defy gravity” as one broker sees it, and it managed to advance by 80 cent, or 4.7 per cent, to climb to €18.00. However, Kingspan continues to suffer from the worsening economic climate as it fell back by 25 cent, or 6.3 per cent, to finish the day down at €3.70, while Grafton had a similar fate, giving up 9 cent or 3.4 per cent to close at €2.56.

DCC had a strong day, as it gained 77 cent, or 6.6 per cent to climb to €12.42, while Elan also advanced, climbing by 23 cent, or 4.6 per cent to €5.21.

Across the ocean, worse than expected retail sales figures led to a slump in US stocks. The S&P 500 lost 4.2 per cent to fall back to 872.97 by 12.14 pm, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated also, losing 332.84 points, or 3.8 per cent, to drop to 8,502.41.

In Europe, all of the 18 western European markets advanced, apart from Finland, and the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 added 0.8 per cent to climb to 205.8. In the UK, the FTSE 100 moved ahead in the morning but fell back in the afternoon after poor retail sales data was announced in the US. It closed up by 1.5 per cent at 4,232.97. In France, the CAC 40 was up by 0.7 per cent, while in Germany the DAX was up by 1.3 per cent.