Another weak day for Iseq as market lacks conviction

MARKET REPORT:"JUST NERVOUS. Very, very nervous," is how one Dublin dealer summed up the mood of buyers and sellers on the Iseq index of Irish shares this week, with yesterday proving to be another weak day.

"People don't seem to have any conviction. Except on a down day, there will be greater conviction among the sellers than there is among the buyers on an up day. It's not ideal," the dealer said.

But the Dublin market did manage to scrape together a better performance than other European indices.

Some respite for the financial stocks helped matters. With a closing price of €9.07, up 39 cent, Anglo Irish Bank clawed back about half of the near 10 per cent loss it sustained the previous day when it announced that it was writing off more bad investments. Buyers came into the stock, but some were simply covering themselves against their short positions.

There was more frenzied activity in Independent News & Media, with nine million shares trading, but while most stocks make gains when they're the subject of stakebuilding interest, IN&M's continued to flounder yesterday, finishing down 6 per cent at €1.83.

Three stockbroking houses cut their earnings estimates for McInerney, after the building group issued a weak outlook for the year ahead on Thursday.

It failed to reverse its 9.7 per cent loss on that day and slipped a further 3.8 per cent (5 cent) to close at €1.25.

Elsewhere, some stocks went up, some went down, while others took one glance at the poor economic data coming out of the US and floundered without putting up too much of a fight.

The market ran out of momentum in the last half an hour before everyone headed off for their weekend.