After a very poor start to the day, the Irish market rallied in the afternoon session on the back of better-than-expected consumer data released in the US.
The two main banks were "well off", one trader noted, until the US consumer figures came out. AIB hit a low of €1.17 at one point, while Bank of Ireland touched €1.33 but both banks bounced in the afternoon. Bank of Ireland finished more or less flat on the day at €1.50, while AIB closed down just over one cent at €1.284. Irish Life & Permanent also recovered well to close flat at €3.00, having dipped to €2.76 earlier in the day.
CRH, always the biggest driver of the index due to its weighting, followed a similar pattern to the financials. After a very weak start, it recovered in the afternoon session to finish up 24 cent at €17.95.
Food group Greencore tumbled by almost 9 per cent - or 10 cent - to close at just under €1.05, after reporting a first-half pretax loss of €27.2 million.
National benchmark indexes rose in 11 of the 18 western European markets. The UK's FTSE 100 and France's CAC 40 climbed 1.1 per cent. Germany's DAX increased 1.4 per cent. In New York, the S&P 500 added 2.2 per cent to 906.17 at 5.29pm.
(Additional reporting: Bloomberg)