The Irish market held up reasonably well for much of today's session thanks to a surprise gain by CRH, but sold off a little into the close.
Markets across Europe got off to a decent start this morning on the back of solid sovereign bond auctions in Spain and Italy. These followed a successful sale of Portuguese debt on Wednesday. Banking stocks were the main beneficiaries of the upward momentum, but this did not translate across to Irish financials, which were all pretty much flat on the day.
Once the US market opened in the afternoon, European markets sold off, particularly the UK, but the Iseq held its ground. This was mainly due to CRH, which rose by almost 1 per cent, or 14.5 cent, to €14.79. This positive performance surprised brokers as recent news from the US indicates there is considerable uncertainty surrounding its budget for the year ahead, and this was expected to weigh on the building materials giant.
Insulation group Kingspan’s great run came to an end today, and it closed down 4.5 per cent, or 35 cent, at €7.35.
According to a Dublin trader, pharmaceuticals company Elan has found itself on the ’least preferred’ list of a US broker. The stock tumbled almost 5.5 per cent, or 29 cent, to €5.04.
The gains enjoyed by C&C earlier in the week were tempered by a weak performance today. Brokers attributed this to a little bit of profit-taking in advance of the publication of the cider manufacturer’s interim management statement tomorrow. It slipped 1.3 cent to just under €3.54.
Overall, the Iseq finished down 1 per cent at 2,902.42. London's FTSE 100 was down 26.84 points, or 0.4 per cent, at 6,023.88, with Tesco the biggest faller. In Frankfurt, the benchmark
DAX Index rose 0.1 per cent to 7,075.11. In Paris, the Cac-40 index closed up 27.3 at 3972.4.
Additional reporting - Bloomberg