A slight recovery in New York this afternoon came too late to rescue free falling stockmarkets today. The ISEQ fell 147 points to 5,300 on another torrid day for equities.
The ISEQ was awash with red figures today with all the major constituents losing ground on the back of more profit warnings and weak economic data.
AIB fell 36 cents to euro 10.85, Bank of Ireland shed 22 cents to euro 8.86 and First Active 2 cents to euro 2.50.
Construction supplier took a pummeling today losing 45 cents or 11.5 per cent as investors took the view that it was too exposed to the contacting American building sector.
Independent News and Media fell 15 cents or 5.3 per cent after reporting a 13 per cent increase in full-year results for 2000. Fyffes reported interims, the shares fell 4.3 per cent to euro 0.90.
The FTSE 100 index attempted a feeble recovery late today shadowing gains made on Wall Street but was weighed down by battered technology and telecoms stocks and ended at a 27-month low.
Telecoms were responsible for about 40 points of the downside for the benchmark index and the mobile phone heavyweight, Vodafone, dropped 1.7 per cent. British Telecom saw its shares drop by 5.4 per cent as investors accused the company of indecision and demanded resignations of its chief executives.
Colt Telecom dropped 11.3 per cent while Telewest Communications was down 4.8 per cent.
The Dow Jones opened sharply down, at one stage shedding 180 points but the blue-chip index managed a slight recovery by 4.40 p.m. when it was down 103.5 points at 9,615.5.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite managed to stay on the positive ground up 6.7 points at 1,864.7.