Continued weakness in Elan and a fall in Anglo Irish Bank's share price helped drag the Iseq index of Irish shares down in what was generally a mixed day for Irish shares.
By close of business, the Dublin market had fallen 70.24 points, a drop of nearly 1.6 per cent to 4,371.62.
Elan continued to suffer a hangover from investor disappointment after detailed clinical data its disease drug development programme failed to live up to market expectations. Although its decline today was nowhere near as dramatic as yesterdays' when it lost one third of its value, Elan still ended the day nearly 4 per cent weaker as it slipped back 52 cents to €13.50.
The biggest volumes were in banking stocks, with Anglo Irish Bank under pressure for most of the day. With reasonable volumes of its shares changing hands, the stock dropped more than 8 per cent as it shed 46.6 cents to €5.12.
Other banking stocks were marginally weaker – Bank of Ireland eased back 4 cents to €5.35, while Irish Life & Permanent was also relatively flat, slipping back just 2.6 cents to €5.176.
However, AIB bucked the trend thanks to the better than expected results announced yesterday. It ended the day up more than one per cent as it tacked on 9.5 cents to €7.945.
CRH was a bit softer today, giving some of the gains it made yesterday, and it eventually found itself 1.7 per cent weaker by close of business as it lost 29 cents to €16.50.
There was a bit of trading in Grafton in the afternoon with decent volumes of 1.2 shares traded. Interest in the stock saw its share price rise more than 4 per cent, a jump of 15 cents to €3.70.
Ryanair, which has seen quite strong interest and heavy volumes of shares traded, had a quieter day today. Nevertheless, it share price continued to decline, dropping 1.8 per cent or 4.5 cents to €2.44.
Most European stocks fell, sending the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index to its third straight monthly drop, after reports showed the US economy expanded at a slower pace than economists estimated last quarter and jobless claims surged.
Sanofi-Aventis SA, France's biggest drugmaker, tumbled the most since May after a decline in sales dragged profit below projections. Unilever, the world's second-largest consumer- products company, had its steepest slump since June 2003 as earnings slipped 20 per cent. BT Group Plc sank the most in eight years after reporting a fourth straight quarterly profit drop.
National benchmark indices dropped in eight of the 18 western European markets. The UK's FTSE 100 slipped 0.2 per cent. Germany's DAX gained 0.3 per cent and France's CAC declined 0.2 per cent.