Falling oil provides relief for airline stocks

The fast falling oil price brought some long-awaited relief to the Dublin market as airlines, banks and building stocks traded strongly today.

At 12.22pm the Dublin market was up over 5 per cent or 214 points on 4,303.

With oil at 3-month lows under $120 a barrel this afternoon, airline stocks were enjoying strong investor interest. Ryanair added over 14 per cent to €2.56 while Aer Lingus rose by almost 8 per cent to €1.52.

Analysts said the better than expected results from French bank Societe Generale had given a boost to financial and building stocks. The French bank reported a 63 per cent fall in second quarter profits and a fall in net profits fell to €644m from €1.744 billion last year but this was still better than expected.

Anglo Irish Bank led the way up, adding 8.5 per cent to €5.50, closely followed by Bank of Ireland which gained over 8 per cent to €5.80. AIB shares rose over 6 per cent to €8.50 while Irish Life and Permanent added 6 per cent to €5.76.

Buildings materials giant CRH was boosted by both pieces of news, adding almost 5 per cent to €16.93 while Grafton rose by 7.5 per cent to €3.83.

Brokers said this week would be an important one for the market with the Federal Reserve due to make a rate decision this evening followed by similar decisions by the Bank of England and the ECB on Thursday.

In Europe, stocks extended gains in midday trade today, led by banks which rose ahead of the Federal Reserve rate decision and following better-than expected results from Societe Generale.

By 12.02pm, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 1.8 per cent at 1,173.64 points, having risen by as much as 2 per cent.

Societe Generale rose by nearly 7 per cent after its results, while the DJ Stoxx European banks index rose 4 per cent.

HBOS added 9 per cent, UBS advanced 6.6 per cent and Deutsche Bank climbed 4.7 per cent. Barclays rose 7.4 per cent after Swiss Re agreed to buy its life assurance portfolio for £753 million.