Greencore the only bad apple on a good day for financials

Iseq: 5,419.36 (+130.25) Settlement date: June 30thTHE DUBLIN market bounced back during a rare positive day that dealers welcomed after poor performances earlier in the week.

The Iseq index gained close to 2.5 per cent to close at 5,419.36, while Europe's leading indices advanced at about half that rate.

"We outperformed everywhere else in Europe today," one dealer said. "That seems to be the pattern, we outperform on the good days and we outperform on the downside as well."

The only real blot on the day was food group Greencore, which said yesterday that the discovery of fraud in its accounts will force it to restate its 2007 and 2006 results and will reduce profits this year. Its stock fell almost 36.5 cent to €2.09, wiping almost 15 per cent off the company's value. Dealers said that it actually fell by 19 per cent in the course of trading yesterday, but came off those lows towards the close.

Investors sold around 2.5 million shares in Dublin. There have been persistent sellers of the stock since it came out of the Morgan Stanley Capital International index a number of weeks ago.

News on the financial front was a lot brighter. In London, Barclays announced that it was raising £4.5 billion by selling shares to the Qatar Investment Authority, lifting banks across Europe.

Bank of Ireland, which took a hammering earlier this week, was up 23 cent at €6.13, an increase of 3.9 per cent. Close to 5.5 million shares in the bank changed hands in Dublin yesterday.

Anglo Irish Bank also enjoyed a good day. Its price rose 33 cent to €6.95, increasing its value by 4.99 per cent. Volumes were good, with 6.5 million of its shares traded in Dublin.

AIB jumped 22 cent to €9.95, an increase of 2.26 per cent.

Building materials giant CRH, also bounced back, gaining €1.16 to close at €18.86, an increase of 6.55 per cent.