Profit-taking among the industrial shares brought the Irish market's headlong gallop to a halt and further gains in the short-term are likely to be dictated by movements on overseas markets.
Many fund managers believe that valuations on the Irish market are now pretty full, but, with so much cash floating around the market, some of the fund managers believe they have little option but to buy. It was noteworthy that the financial shares - which have led the market charge this week - held their ground yesterday with the profit-taking largely confined to the bigger industrial shares.
The only financial to weaken was Irish Life and even here the fall was only 4p to a close of 496p. Otherwise, it was onwards and upwards for the financials, with AIB up 5p to 815p, Bank of Ireland added 13p to £12.20, Irish Permanent was 10p higher on 930p, while Anglo Irish added 1p to 162p.
M&G has emerged as a recent sizeable seller of Anglo, selling three million shares on January 13th when they were trading at around 150p. M&G's decision to cut its stake in Anglo to 7.77 per cent has cost it £330,000 as a result of Anglo's continued rise.
Among the industrials, the main gainer was Ryanair, which jumped 30p to 380p and almost a dollar on Nasdaq to $27 after strong traffic figures for January. So far, the view in the market is that the dispute with SIPTU has had no impact on Ryanair's operations.
The bigger industrials were generally weaker on profit-taking, with CRH down 5p on 890p and Smurfit 5p easier on 204p. Elsewhere it was mixed, with Fyffes 2p firmer on 145p and Golden Vale up 2 1/2p to 110p ahead of next week's results. Greencore was 8p easier but firm on the buyback price of 380p.
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