Financials bounce back on buoyant US market

DUBLIN REPORT:IRISH FINANCIAL stocks staged a rebound yesterday, after losing €1.8 billion in value the day before.

Buoyed by strongly performing US markets, financial stocks helped the Iseq to make up some of the ground that it had lost as the Irish market closed up by 2.7 per cent, or by 126.67 points, to 4786.18.

Bank of Ireland led the financials recovery, as it wiped out most of the losses it suffered the previous day, closing up by over 7 per cent to €4.83, up by 32 cent.

In a day of light enough trading, AIB was the next best performing financial, closing at €8.55, up by 45 cent or by 5.6 per cent.

It was followed by both Irish Life Permanent and Anglo Irish Bank, who also saw their share prices increase.

At closing yesterday, Irish Life Permanent was at €4.88, up by 23 cent or by 4.95 per cent, while Anglo Irish Bank was trading at €5.30, up by 22 cent, or by 4.23 per cent.

However, brokers say that the financials' recovery was due to financial stocks in the US and Europe performing well, rather than anything specific to the Irish market.

Moreover, they say that stocks were only recovering lost ground, rather than staging a real rally. Building materials firm Kingspan was one of the best performers on the Iseq, up by 6.6 per cent, or 36 cent to €5.86.

After climbing by more than 11 per cent the previous day on the back of falling oil prices, Ryanair closed the day up by 1.1 per cent to €2.86, up by 3 cent.

It was another poor day of trading on the exchange for CC Group however, which saw its share price fall by more than 7 per cent to drop back to €3.00, a loss of 23 cent.

DCC was also one of the losers yesterday, dropping by 20 cent, or by 1.4 per cent to finish the day at €14.36.