The turmoil in Brazil took its full toll on the Irish market yesterday, with the ISEQ overall index down over 3 per cent, although off its lows of earlier in the day.
Despite yesterday's losses, the market is still ahead in 1999 - something that cannot be said for some of the bigger international stock markets like Frankfurt and London, which have given up all the new year gains.
Dealers said that volumes during yesterday's selling were substantially lower than during last week's buying spree. What volume there was concentrated on the highly liquid big financial and industrial shares, most of which closed above their lows for the day.
Among the financials, AIB lost 45 cents to #15.80 (£12.44), Bank of Ireland was 73 cents lower on #18.32 (£14.43) while Anglo Irish Bank dropped 15 cents to #2.41 (£1.90). The two merger stocks, Irish Life and Irish Permanent, also lost ground with Irish Life down 30 cents on #9.00 (£7.09)and Irish Permanent down 47 cents on #14.20 (£11.18).
The trend was much the same among the industrials and the blue-chip of the sector, CRH, was 50 cents weaker on #14.00 (£11.03) while Smurfit gave a good chunk of its recent gains, losing #13 cents to #1.67 (£1.32).
Irish stocks on Wall Street lost early ground and stayed at their lower levels, despite the phenomenal recovery from early weakness by Nasdaq heavyweights Intel and Yahoo. Stocks like CBT, Iona, Ryanair, Esat, Elan and Saville were also trading lower as the market closed, but trading volumes in the stocks were generally low.
