Markets expected to fall further

The downward spiral on the Irish market continued with little sign that the current period of weakness is coming to an end and dealers believe it may have to fall further before touching bottom.

With Wall Street and other international markets showing displeasure at the apparent inability of G7 ministers to combat the crisis, the short-term outlook for markets is bleak.

The Irish market closed at its lowest level since late last year with all of the leaders falling sharply. Smurfit also suffered from earnings downgrades from Dublin brokers, including one from NCB which slashed the 1998 forecast from 11.1p to 10.1p and the 1998 forecast from 20.7p to 13p.

If the Stone merger with JS Corp goes ahead, then that 1999 profit forecast is clawed back further to 7.1p, according to NCB. Smurfit shares - which began trading minus the 1.8p dividend - were 7p lower on a new all-time low of 90p and were offered at that level.

Bank shares continued to tumble with AIB 28p lower on 842p, Bank of Ireland was off 30p on 995p while Irish Permanent was 20p weaker on 740p.

The pricing of the First Active flotation at 225p is a bit of an embarrassment for the company and its advisers, given the previously indicated range 265p-380p. Institutions have clearly struck a very hard bargain at 225p - equivalent to just 1.5 times First Active's book value. But even that sort of bargain-basement pricing does not assure a premium in today's first-day trading, with the behaviour of other financial shares having a major impact.

With NASDAQ blue-chips like Microsoft and Dell taking a hammering, Irish stocks on the New York market were sharply lower, with Iona down $1 1/8 on $19, Esat over $3 lower on $26 while Elan was trading almost $3 lower on $66 1/2 .