With nothing of note happening on international markets, the Irish stock market trod water yesterday to close virtually unchanged.
Dealers believe that the market is likely to remain quiet until the outcome of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting later this week. A cut in rates by the MPC should give London some stimulus and this would feed through to the Irish market, especially to financial shares. Apart from that the only corporate events that may move prices are the two mergers between Irish Life and Irish Permanent and the Jurys/Doyle hotel link-up.
Gains by Bank of Ireland and CRH balanced out a fall by AIB and these price movements accounted for the bulk of the index. Bank of Ireland was 15p higher on £13.55 - the bank's interim scrip dividend will be one new share for every 153.43 held at £14.11p, the price of the share when the books closed on November 27th. Since then the shares have dropped by almost 70p. AIB was down 14p on £10.23 while CRH was 15p higher on £10.45.
The market seems to be showing a growing impatience at the lack of corporate news from Tullow, and the share - always seen as the blue-chip of the resources sector - was down 7p on 50p. Greencore was 3 1/2p lower on 276 1/2p despite a positive note from company broker NCB which dismissed what it described as "surprisingly negative comments" on the full-year results.
IWP - trading less the 2.66p dividend - was 5p lower on 175p and is under a bit of pressure following the poor results from its rival, McBride. Irish Continental was 10p easier on 790p - Fidelity has disclosed that it has sold 240,000 shares since end-September and its stake now stands at just over 7 per cent.
