Ryanair drops by 3% in face of surging oil prices

Market Report: Surging oil prices weighed on the Dublin market yesterday, with Ryanair feeling most pain.

Shares in the airline dropped by 11 cents, or nearly 3 per cent, to close at €3.87 as investors chose to focus on future fuel costs rather than on encouraging passenger numbers for September. A negative report on the airline sector from Goldman Sachs did little to help.

The banks were in shaky form yesterday too, with all of the main players losing ground. AIB shed four cents to finish at €13.85, while Bank of Ireland lost 13 cents to close at €11.04.

Anglo Irish fared worse, dropping 30 cents to €15.00. Irish Life & Permanent ended 21 cents lower at €13.16 after moving ex-dividend by 16.2 cents.

Elsewhere, CRH closed 16 cents weaker at €19.44.

C&C was under some pressure in advance of Monday's full-year results, with shares falling 10 cents to €2.30. The market is expecting profit growth to be muted.

IAWS was quiet after Kerry Group sold 1.2 million shares in the firm at €10.20 on Tuesday. A further 700,000 shares were sold by another co-op shareholder on the same day. Kerry retains about 500,000 shares in the firm as part of the IAWS Nominees Group. The Nominees' shareholding has declined from 8.18 to 6.64 per cent after Tuesday's deal.

Kerry shed 20 cents to close at €17.80, while IAWS rose by six to €10.31.

Tullow rose by 4.25p to 148.5p in London after chief executive Mr Aidan Heavey said the firm wanted to increase its presence in Africa in the wake of the Energy Africa deal.

Warner Chilcott was steady at 821p, with the firm confirming that it had received a third preliminary takeover approach.

Back in Dublin, Grafton weakened a touch but the move came on reasonably low volume. Shares fell six cents to €7.51, while Heiton rose by 13 cents to €6.85.

Elan won back some of Tuesday's losses as it climbed 43 cents to €18.81.