Irish financial shares continued to suffer from negative sentiment and the two leaders fell sharply with no obvious sign that the rot has been stopped. Yesterday's fall by AIB and Bank of Ireland was in contrast to a buoyant British banking sector where heavyweights like HSBC and NatWest made gains.
Bank of Ireland continues to suffer from the, at best cautious and at worst negative, reaction to the Alliance & Leicester link-up, and dropped another 25 cents to €17.75 (£13.98). In stark contrast, Alliance & Leicester gained 10p to 915 1/2p sterling (€14.06).
AIB and Irish Life & Permanent also suffered from the malaise, with AIB down 34 cents to the sterling equivalent of €12.74 (£10.03) while Irish Life & Permanent lost 15 cents to €12.25 (£9.65).
Industrials were mostly weaker with CRH down 47 1/2 cents to €16.37 1/2
despite being upgraded to a "strong buy"by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Smurfit lost some of its recent gains falling five cents to €2.50 (£1.97). Ryanair's results were ahead of forecasts, but the scale of the planned share sale by the Ryan family, Irish Air and chief executive Mr Michael O'Leary, took the market a little aback. Ryanair dealt down 50 cents to €8.50 (£6.69) in Dublin while the ADRs were trading $2 3/4 lower on $44 3/4 on Nasdaq as the Irish market closed.
IWP was in some demand and jumped 20 cents to €2.30 (£1.81) in late trading, Independent lost 10 cents to €4.95 (£3.90) while James Crean drifted five cents lower to €1.10 (£0.87).
