The looming increase in US interest rates failed to impress Wall Street which seems to be taking the prospect of a quarter-point rise in rates in its stride. If The Fed does limit its tightening to a quarter-point then markets should recover some ground although the draining effect of the Telecom flotation will still mean that institutional funds will flow out of the leaders.
The busiest stock yesterday was AIB which traded actively between its overnight €12.63 (£9.95) and a low of €12.40 (£9.77) before closing down 3 cents on the day on €12.60 (£9.92). Bank of Ireland traded as low as €15.95 (£12.56) before closing 10 cents lower on €16.10 (£12.68).
Industrials were also weaker with CRH down 43 cents on €17.37 (£13.68) while Smurfit continued its steady downward drift, losing 3 cents to €2.27 (£1.79). Esat Telecom on its first day on the market was uneventful with the shares trading at €21.50 (£16.93) - most of the trading in Esat will remain concentrated on Nasdaq with the telecom's groups share register still heavily populated by US institutions.
Another debutant, CPL, traded up modestly from its €0.77 (£0.61) flotation price and closed up 3 cents on €0.80 (£0.63). Lack of liquidity - 82 per cent of the shares are held by the management - will be a problem for this stock until more equity is released onto the market.
Greencore continued to drift lower and lost 11 cents to €3.00 (£2.36), its lowest level this year, Kerry lost 20 cents to €11.50 (£9.06) while Irish Life & Permanent was 40 cents weaker on €10.00 (£7.88) - again a low for the year. Navan was unchanged on €1.00 (£0.78) in Dublin - the group placed 5.73 million shares at 58p sterling (€0.89) in London to fund exploration.
Ryanair came 10 cents off its all-time high to close on €9.90 (£7.80) director Howard Millar disclosed 30,000 shares last week at €9.40 to raise €282,000 (£222,000).
