Bank of Ireland might be half-way through a whistle-stop tour of institutional investors in Edinburgh, London and Dublin, but the presentations aimed at reassuring investors after the Alliance & Leicester debacle have yet to find their way through to the Bank share price.
Rising treasury bond yields in anticipation of possible rises in US interest rates have dulled interest in financial stocks in general and most Irish financials were slightly weaker yesterday. Bank of Ireland was the weakest of the financials, falling 15 cents to €17.95 (£14.14), AIB was unchanged on €13.60 (£10.71) while Irish Life & Permanent bucked the trend and added 5 cents to €11.15 (£8.78).
Elan was the best of the bigger industrials, rising 85 cents to €29.25 ($30.13) in Dublin and up $2 in New York to $30.81 by the time the Dublin market closed. Elan has been boosted by Abbott Laboratories' agreed bid for Alza Corporation - a mirror-image of Elan.
The Abbott bid for Alza is on a p/e 50 per cent higher current rating in the market and will undoubtedly fuel speculation that one of the giants of the sector might turn their attentions to Elan. Glaxo Wellcome has been touted as a possible bidder and this speculation was enough to generate active trading in Elan options on the Chicago options exchange.
Other industrials were mixed, with CRH in good demand trading up 30 cents to €18.25 (£14.37) although Smurfit drifted 5 cents lower to €2.50 (£1.97, drawing no support from the latest merger in the North American paper and packaging industry - Weyerhauser's agreed $2.45 billion bid for Canadian group McMillan Bloedel.
