Market takes a pasting, `hit by a tidal wave'

An afternoon rally on Wall Street came too late for Dublin, which took a pasting after US stocks fell on fears for the US economy.

Irish technology stocks Iona and Baltimore were particularly badly hit. Iona was down $8.50 at $62 by the time Dublin closed despite announcing a 51 per cent increase in third-quarter revenues. Baltimore also fell heavily, down $1.12-1/2 at $13.12-1/2 by midday in New York. It was not helped by company saying it planned to issue more shares to fund acquisitions.

"There's nothing complicated about the Irish market today - it got hit by a tidal wave," said a Dublin broker yesterday. Disappointing figures from IBM were seen as the trigger for the morning sell-off on Wall Street.

Most of the leading non-technology Irish stocks all took a hit. Elan, which had put on gains earlier this week ahead of its interims, retreated

to close at €61, down from €62.20. The banks did not fare as well. AIB fell 48 cents to €11.58 while Bank of Ireland was off 10 cents at €8.06. Eircom was among the hardest hit, falling from €2.80 to €2.56. Talks with Vodafone over the sale of Eircell are expected to take another couple of weeks to complete with the subsidiary expected to raise more than £3.5 billion, or €4.4 billion. Eircom also announced that it was investing €1.65 million in Beacon Integrated Solutions in return for a 49 per cent stake.

Turnover in Dunloe Ewart topped 20 million shares and Mr Liam Carroll was again in the market increasing his stake in the property company to more than 25 per cent, making him the largest shareholder. CRH fell from €17.02 to €16.75 while Jefferson Smurfit managed to buck the trend, moving up five cents to €1.98.

Aminex, which did not trade in Dublin yesterday, announced it was selling its Tunisian interests to PA Resources, a Swedish group, for $5.75 million.