Spectre of Mideast war shadows markets

THE spectre of war in the Middle East, which hung over the markets all week, will again be the dominating influence next week as investors look for positive news, hoping to end the lengthening sequence of losing weeks on world stock markets.

Over 2 billion has been wiped off the value of Irish shares in the last two days, with the ISEQ falling by 1.5% yesterday on top of 1.9% on Thursday.

The dollar edged higher against the euro, as Wall Street rallied off hefty opening lows, shrugging aside weak US consumer sentiment data and concerns over the economic