The Greenspan factor continued to weigh heavily on financial markets, and the Irish market lost almost another 1.5 per cent in addition to the 3 per cent it lost on Wednesday. And with Wall Street weakening further on fears that Mr Greenspan's warnings on interest rates might become a reality, there seems little sign that the current bout of weakness is at an end.
While profit-taking is one of the prime factors behind the recent slump in the Irish market, there seems to be a growing view - albeit still a minority one - that what is happening now is a correction that needed to happen. How much further the market will have to fall before hitting bottom remains a moot point but dealers would be concerned to see the ISEQ fall below the 5,000 level.
Most of the big losses were concentrated on the usual suspects - mainly the financials - although Smurfit, Independent and Waterford Wedgwood remain under heavy pressure on fears over their exposure to weak Far Eastern economies and currencies.
Among the financials, AIB fell as low as £10.55 before rebounding to close over 27p lower on £10.62 while Bank of Ireland was also 27p lower on £14.48. Other financials also fell heavily with Anglo Irish down 12p to 193p, Irish Life down 11p on 659p and Irish Permanent lost 35p to close on 930p.
Smurfit has been under pressure and downgradings of JS Corp (from 1998 earnings per share of 69 cents to 58 cents by Goodbody) did little to support the share which lost another 8p to 180p yesterday. Smurfit is now almost 100p below its level immediately after the JS Corp-Stone announcement.
CRH recovered well from a £10 low to close down 8p on the day on £10.12, while some second-line industrials took a belated dive. Barlo was down 3p on 80p, Fyffes lost 8p to 155p while Independent fell 10p to 335p on nervousness over its earnings from Australia and New Zealand. Waterford Wedgwood is exposed to the Far East through its sales in Japan and fears of lower retail spending by the Japanese has left the share exposed. It closed down 7p on 88p, well off its 120p high. IWP lost 15p to 370p while Marlborough fell 30p to 320p.
DCM newcomer SupaRule might have liked a better day for its debut but the shares still dealt up 7p from the placing price to close on 117p. Celtic Resources got a dismal response to its four for three open offer at 6p with existing shareholders only taking up 5.4 per cent of their entitlements. Celtic is now attempting to place the balance of the open offer shares.
On Nasdaq, good results from Elan did not result in gains for the shares which were trading $3/4 lower on $71 1/4
as the Irish market closed. Elan has had an extraordinary run in recent weeks and profit-taking from the recent $75 high is no great surprise. Icon continued to surge on the back of its good results and was up $5/8 on a new high of $30 1/4 while Iona recovered from recent heavy selling to trade up $2 to $32 7/8 as the Irish market closed.
