Shares rise as fears ease about interest rates

European shares rose on Friday as US jobs news eased fears that the Federal Reserve there could continue with large interest rate increases.

DUBLIN

Positive global and local news buoyed Irish shares, lifting many leading stocks in Dublin. Housebuilder Glenveagh Properties said it would buy back up to €60 million worth of its shares from investors. The announcement boosted its shares by 2.59 per cent to 87.2 cent, recovering some of the ground they lost earlier in the week. Rival Cairn Homes climbed 2 per cent to 91.6 cent.

Ryanair gained 2.27 per cent to close at €13.95, adding to gains made on Thursday following this week’s profit forecast upgrade. Another heavyweight, packaging manufacturer Smurfit Kappa, rose 2.95 per cent to €37.99.

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AIB added 1.21 per cent to €3.85 after the Government announced it would resume offloading the bank’s shares. The lender was one of several that taxpayers bailed out following a financial collapse, leaving the State with a majority stake in the company. The Government has been selling this off in phases since last year.

LONDON

Oil giant Shell boosted London’s blue chip FTSE100 index to a nine-month high on Friday, saying earnings from liquefied natural gas trading were likely to have increased significantly in the last three months of 2022. The Anglo-Dutch group’s shares climbed 1.67 per cent to £23.50 in London.

Miner Rio Tinto added almost 2 per cent to hit £60.58, while rival Anglo American gained 5.72 per cent to £35.09 as copper and iron prices rose. Glencore advanced 2.32 per cent to £5.26 on the same commodity moves.

The FTSE 250, focused more British domestic stocks, slipped 0.5 per cent on bad property and construction news. Building in Britain slowed last month at its sharpest rate since May 2020, a survey showed as new orders dried up in the face of rising costs and interest rates. Data from home-lender Halifax showed British house prices slid again in December.

Among individual stocks, Clarkson jumped 5.09 per cent to £33.05 after the shipping company said it expects 2022 profits to be ahead of market expectations.

EUROPE

Mining’s strong performance fed through to European markets, boosting the Stoxx 600 index by 1.2 per cent, leaving it at its highest level since May. For the week it clocked gains of 4.6 per cent, best performance in more than nine months.

Roche Holding jumped 0.9 per cent to 293.6 Swiss francs after US regulators granted priority review to one of its new drugs Glofitamab.

Chrysler parent Stellantis fell 0.7 per cent to €14.45 after the car manufacturer’s chief executive Carlos Tavares warned of more factory closures.

US

Wall Street’s main indexes rallied on Friday as data that showed cooling wages and a contraction in US services activity eased worries that its central bank, the Federal Reserve, would hike rates further.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, a big investor in the Republic, was up around 2 per cent at $50.69 in afternoon trading in New York. Reports said it was in talks with China to secure a licence to allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of the US firm’s Covid-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid there.

Big technology and other growth stocks such as Apple and Meta Platforms Inc rose around 2 per cent each, boosted by a decline in the 10-year US Treasury yield.

Bed Bath & Beyond slid 20.4 per cent after Reuters reported that the home goods retailer was preparing to seek bankruptcy protection in coming weeks. – Additional reporting: Bloomberg, Reuters