The Asia Crisis was back on the agenda yesterday with the warning from Standard Chartered that the problems there had not gone away. That and the sudden resignation of the Barclay's chief executive, under whose stewardship a £250 million loss in Russia was made, reminded British shareholders of the precariousness of developing markets. With its Polish interests, AIB was the only Irish stock which could have been directly affected but both main banks gained yesterday as the ISEQ shrugged off a two-day slippage and climbed less than 1 per cent higher. AIB was up 15p to 1055p, and Bank of Ireland nudged up to 1427p from 1249p sterling, a rise of 7p.
The performance in the latter half of the week reflected Wall Street's slow winding down for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
The Dow Jones, nevertheless, was buoyed by confirmation of the Exxon Corp and Mobil Corp merger talks, and kept the index within range of its 9374.27 record reached on Monday, closing yesterday at 9333.08. Black gold, too, fired the imagination for the Irish exploration stock, Dragon Oil, which was up 2p sterling to 22.5p sterling (26p) in London following the decision by the Dubai Government to buy a 46 per cent stake.
Smurfit was up 2p on the day on continued positive reaction to its rationalisation plan for Smurfit Stone, announced on Wednesday. In New York, Stone was back to $14.43, a drop of 19 cents.
Financials had a lacklustre week in general, with Anglo Irish slipping 1p to 179p yesterday, the same as last week's closing price. First Active was down 5p to 340p yesterday, while Irish Life was back 10p to 590p. Irish Life disclosed yesterday that 50,000 shares were sold at 601p, comprising 5.05 per cent of the stock.
Irish Permanent, in merger discussions with Irish Life, held on to 925p in one deal yesterday.
Food groups also stayed within their range this week. Kerry was up 5p to 960p yesterday and AWG was up 3p to 215p. IAWS was back 2.5p to 297.5p and Greencore and Fyffes both held at 305p and 142p respectively.
Jones Group was unaffected by the expected announcement that it was in negotiations to sell its Irish and British oil companies and one of its product companies. The price remained at 192.5p sterling.
IWP was also steady at 210p after the announcement of its restructuring plan on Wednesday which saw the stock move down from 220p. Adare was unchanged at 650p yesterday, on the back of Thursday's good results which added 5p to the stock.
