Market remains nervous

Settlement Date:Friday November 12th/While the market remains nervous, it appears to be taking the view that the worst of the bad news may be behind us, according to traders in Dublin.

With many companies due to report results in the coming weeks, traders say the expectation is that most may have positive news to report and that this sentiment is generating some advance buying.

Overall, banking stocks traded strongly with a bounce from recent lows. AIB was one of the main movers of the day up 30 per cent to close up €0.37, a rise that would indicate that heavy selling earlier in the week may have been too aggressive.

Bank of Ireland also closed strongly and was up 4.7 per cent to close the day at €0.42.

Irish Life and Permanent, whose share price had been on the slide in recent days, closed the day €0.94, up 7.3 per cent.

There was a relatively good performance by non financial stocks too, although Ryanair was down 1.7 per cent to close at €3.9.

Norkom shares bounced around somewhat during the day. While the company’s half year results showed an 8 per cent drop in revenues to the end of September, the market took comfort that this tallied with earlier profit warnings and shares were up 7 per cent to close at €0.91.

DCC closed up 2.5 per cent to 21.85 with low volumes likely to be attributable to a loyal shareholder base that doesn’t trade in large volumes.

The market reacted positively to the earlier statement from CRH that its rate of decline in sales had moderated with shares rising 4.4 per cent to close at €14.46 Independent News & Media continued its downward creep, dropping 2.3 per cent to close at €0.57, while Smurfit rose 0.8 per cent ahead of tomorrow’s trading statement to close at €8.07.

The discovery of a new oilfield by Petroneft Resources saw its stock trade strongly, rising 7.87 per cent to close at €0.68 while Greencore, due to report results in the coming weeks showed strong volumes and closed 1.10 up 2.79 per cent.