Brokers had expected the Irish market to start off “guns blazing” today given that US markets closed very strongly yesterday, but volumes were fairly light and the Iseq index closed down 24.68 points at 2,803.19.
Following the news that its Permanent TSB unit is increasing its mortgage rates, Irish Life & Permanent lost 4 per cent - or 13.5 cent - to close at €3.165. However this fall was mainly attributed to profit-taking.
Despite the fact that CRH's peer Saint-Gobain made gains today after releasing its first-half results, the Irish cement giant moved in the opposite direction, losing 25 cent to finish at €17.50.
There was a little bit of selling in low fares airline Ryanair in advance of its results which are due out on Monday. The stock closed at €3.36, down almost 2 per cent.
According to brokers, "the market didn't care" that Independent News & Media managed to extend its financial standstill with bondholders. The standstill was due to expire today, but has been pushed out until August 27th. The stock edged down fractionally to 21.5 cent, on light volumes.
Although it was a slightly disappointing end to week for the Iseq, the index traded more or less in with its European counterparts. Across Europe, the FTSE 100 index was up 0.4 per cent, Germany's DAX was down 0.3 percent and France's CAC 40 fell 0.2 per cent.
(Additional reporting - Reuters)