Leading Irish stocks fall back

Investor sentiment weakened today, as leading Irish stocks CRH, Ryanair, Elan and Kerry all went into reverse in tandem with equities across Europe.

Share prices slipped back as lower metals prices dragged mining stocks down and concerns that rising interest rates in China could dampen industrial demand circulated the markets.

The Iseq underperformed the major European indices, falling 1.3 per cent, as the 38-point drop took the index further away from the 3,000 point level. The largest component stock, building materials group CRH, declined 1.3 per cent to €16.37, taking the edge off recent gains, as Portuguese cement manufacturer Secil, a business in which CRH has a 49 per cent stake, announced a 6 per cent decline in sales.

Paper and packaging group Smurfit Kappa saw its shares slip 5.5 per cent to €8.60, despite issuing a set of full-year results that were in line with stockbrokers' positive expectations.

The company announced a 22 per cent growth in earnings and 53 per cent rise in operating profit for 2010 and said it expects further growth in 2011.

The banks were all fallers. Bank of Ireland shares showed the most softness in the sector with a near 7 per cent decline to 36 cent.

The Government announced towards the end of the session that it is postponing further capital injections in Bank of Ireland and AIB, as well as EBS Building Society, until after the February 25th general election, stressing that the banks were adequately capitalised in the meantime.

Insurance group FBD and bookmaker Paddy Power were the only stocks on the main market trading significant volumes of shares to finish with green tickers next to their names, indicating a gain. However, even here the share price climbs were modest.

Despite the release of encouraging sales growth numbers by Aryzta's key customer McDonald's, the food group, which has a dual Irish-Swiss listing, fell 4 per cent in Dublin trade to €31.44.