Any hopes that the strong gains of Monday would lead to a push towards 5,000 on the ISEQ were dashed yesterday when continued weakness in financial stocks left the market just over 1 per cent lower while financials once again underperformed with a fall of almost 2.5 per cent. There still seems no sign of a floor under financial shares and there were losses across the board yesterday with AIB down 20 cents on #11.05 (£8.70), Bank of Ireland down 33 1/2 cents on #7.56 1/2 (£5.96) while Irish Life & Permanent was off 20 cents on #9.50 (£7.48). After falling to a trading low of #1.90 (£1.50), First Active managed to close unchanged on #2 (£1.58), a full 86 cents below last year's flotation price.
CRH remained the star industrial, gaining another 37 1/2 cents to #21.35 1/2 (£16.82), leaving the stock little more than 30 cents off its all-time high.
Eircom, however, finds it difficult to consolidate once it goes close to #4.30, and fell eight cents yesterday to #4.20 (£3.31). ITG, however, goes from strength to strength and jumped another 40 cents to #9.90 (£7.80), bringing its two-day gains to a hefty #1.40. Kingspan gained eight cents to #2.62 (£2.06), Waterford Wedgwood was 3 1/2 cents firmer on 99 cents (78p), although Smurfit was 5 1/2 cents easier on the sterling equivalent of #2.89 (£2.28).
Esat experienced volatile trade on Nasdaq between $76 1/4 and $81 after Telenor confirmed it would go ahead with a solo bid, while the two e-commerce stocks were once again firm, with Trintech up almost $1 1/4 on $46 and Baltimore up almost $3 1/2 on $80 as Dublin closed. Earlier in London, Baltimore was up £2.17 on £48.88 sterling.
