Anglo provides welcome boost for Iseq

Market Report:Anglo Irish Bank's full-year results dominated activity on the Iseq index of Irish shares yesterday, providing a welcome boost for the Dublin market.

With its pretax profit breaking the €1 billion mark for the first time and phrases such as "resilient funding platform" and "excellent liquidity and capital strength" used by chief executive David Drumm in his statement, Anglo's shares quickly shot up by 10 per cent, or €1.04, to €11.02.

Volume in the stock was strong, at 19 million, with plenty of buyers in the market.

The Anglo effect lifted the entire Iseq by 4 per cent, adding more than €3 billion to the value of Irish shares. It was a positive step for the market, which had been suffering nerves in relation to Anglo's all-important figures and outlook.

The other financial stocks did well as a result of Anglo's surge. Irish Life & Permanent was the best of the rest, climbing 6.9 per cent to €12.40, up 80 cent.

AIB increased its share price by more than 5 per cent to finish at €14.75, up 75 cent, on volume of five million, while Bank of Ireland rose 4.4 per cent to close at €10.63 on volume of almost seven million shares.

Elsewhere, an easing in the price of oil was good news for the airlines. Aer Lingus climbed 2 per cent to a round €2, while Ryanair made even more impressive gains, jumping almost 6 per cent, or 26 cent, to close at €4.71.

It was a positive day all round. Even Grafton, which had been dragged down to €5.65 in the morning by a subdued trading statement from fellow building sector company Wolseley, recovered most of its daily losses in the afternoon and closed down just four cent at €5.91.

Other fallers were concentrated in the food sector, with Greencore, Fyffes and Origin all losing ground.