Weakness among financial shares continued to drag the Irish market lower, and there seems no end to the current malaise despite Wall Street's strong performance during its opening session yesterday. Wall Street clearly does not believe that a rise in US interest rates is in the offing in spite of fears that numbers today will show an uptake in US inflation.
There was sizeable trading in both big banks but AIB suffered the biggest fall, down 41 cents to €13.10 (£10.32) while Bank of Ireland faltered after a firm opening and closed down 10 cents on €16.30 (£12.84). Irish Life & Permanent, which has targeted funds of £100 million (€126.97 million) with its new portfolio of investment products, was five cents easier on €11.35 (£8.94).
Among the industrials, CRH drifted 7 cents lower on €17.48 (£13.77), even though Morgan Stanley Dean Witter has upgraded the stock to a "strong buy" and set a 12-month target of €20.50 (£16.15) for the shares. Mild profit-taking after its recent good run dragged Smurfit three cents lower to €2.62 (£2.06). Ryanair lost eight cents to €9.00 (£7.09), while Powerscreen jumped 18p to £1.91 sterling after the announcement of the recommended £1.95 a share bid from Terex.
Grafton disclosed that it has bought another 460,000 Heiton shares, bringing its stake in its fellow building materials company to 5.51 million shares or 11.68 per cent. Grafton has so far spent £11.4 million on Heiton shares and nobody in the market believes that this is simply an investment. Few in the market believe that Heiton will be an independent company at year-end.
