International issues hurt Iseq

Slowing Chinese export growth, a ratings cut for Spain and a concerns over yesterday’s Portuguese bond issue put European stocks under pressure today and knocked another 20 points – 0.7 per cent – off the Iseq index of Irish shares today.

Investors backed off equities after figures emerging showing that China's trade balance ended February with a $3.7 billion deficit, while Moody's cut Spain's credit rating to AA as oil price volatility continued in the face of trouble in Libya.

Profit taking on a number of leading stocks, including CRH, and renewed fears about peripheral European countries sparked by the 6 per cent interest that markets charged on this week's Portuguese bond issue, further coloured the picture in Dublin.

As a result, the benchmark Iseq index of Irish shares closed 0.7 per cent down at 2,874.5.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Dow Jones Stoxx 600, which tracks leading shares in 18 western European markets, was down 1.2 per cent at 277.73 shortly before 4pm.

London's leading FTSE-100 index closed down 1.6 per cent at 5,854.29 as investors absorbed the bad news.

CRH closed down almost 1 per cent at €15.305. Dealers said that this was largely a result of profit taking and pointed out that the international building materials giant outperformed its sector generally.

In a related sector, insulation specialist, Kingspan suffered as sentiment towards its peers weakened. Its shares closed down 4.55 per cent at €6.30, dealers suggested that investors' concerns were overdone.

Greencore weakened following the advances it made earlier in the week after announcing that it would not make a new bid for Northern Foods, it was down almost 3 per cent at €1.165.

Packaging specialist, Smurfit, was weak all day, and closed 1.71 per cent down at €8.60, around 600,000 of its shares were traded in Dublin.

Agri goods group, Origin, which results showing strong operating profit growth and announced two acquisitions, was up 4.44 per cent at €4. Its biggest shareholder, Aryzta, is due to report next week.