Market holds up well as banks attract attention

DUBLIN REPORT: Iseq: 2,330.36 (-33.82) Settlement date: April 8th

THE IRISH market held up surprisingly well yesterday given the imminence of the emergency budget, brokers noted. Although the Iseq overall index of Irish shares slipped 1.4 per cent, this was due to a poor showing by the two dominant stocks, CRHand Ryanair, and did not reflect the overall trend in the market.

In recent weeks, trading activity in banking stocks has been more or less limited to retail investors, but the banks are starting to attract attention from institutional investors, who are beginning to take the view that the two main banks will not have to be nationalised.

Thanks to this return of confidence, the banks continued to regain ground yesterday. Bank of Irelandtraded up by more than 19 per cent to €0.81, AIBgained almost 16 per cent to finish at €1.02, while Irish Life & Permanentjumped more than 12 per cent to €1.74.

Defensive stocks fell out of favour as investors switched towards higher-risk stocks. Kerry Groupsuffered as a result, and was off more than 7 per cent at €14.26.

United Drugput in a good performance on the back of a relatively positive trading update, closing up more than 3 per cent on the day at €1.61.

Greencoreenjoyed a bounce after announcing that it had succeeded in refinancing its debt facilities. At one stage it broke through the €0.92 mark, but then fell back to €0.82, a daily gain of more than 6 per cent.

Smurfit Kappawas also a winner on the day, jumping more than 3 per cent to €1.43.

Elanremained under pressure and shed a further 25 cent to €4.55, after a setback relating to its Alzheimer drug trials emerged on Thursday.

Elsewhere, I rish Continentalclosed down €1 at €13 on very low volumes.