MARKET REPORT: It was another pretty humdrum day on the Irish market with modest price changes and low volumes the order of the day. Today is the beginning of May so the old dictum "sell in May and go away" will be tested.
There was some decent volume in AIB but the share still dipped three cents to €14.65 while Bank of Ireland was five cents lower on €12.95. Anglo Irish remained the star of the sector and briefly hit €6 before closing 10 cents higher on €5.98. Irish Life & Permanent recovered from recent weakness and jumped 18 cents to €15.10.
There were some solid gains among industrial stocks but turnover was generally low. CRH enjoyed a strong rebound and jumped 32 cents to €19.25 while DCC gained 40 cents to €13.25. Fyffes was four cents lower on €1.35 as Fidelity disclosed that its stake had risen to 6.6 per cent. This indicates that Fidelity has been an aggressive buyer of the stock in recent weeks as the Fyffes annual report last week showed the US investment house with a stake in the 3-5 per cent range.
Independent News & Media traded in size and was unchanged at €2.10 with last week's sale of treasury shares back into the market apparently putting a floor under the shares. Glanbia gained three cents to €1.56 while IAWS was 13 cents higher on €9.13.
Ryanair continued to trade in size and dipped as low as €5.95 before closing unchanged on €6.02 while Smurfit edged two cents higher to €2.66. A price of €2.70 has been the recent sell point for Smurfit shares so it will be interesting to see if it can break through that ceiling.
Riverdeep's results were well received and the stock was up more than 8 per cent on Nasdaq by midday on $20.45.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)