Market rallies after 12-month low

ALTHOUGH the ISEQ bowed out for the week with a near 1% dip yesterday, throughout July the Irish market has maintained the strong recovery item barked on in the second quarter of the year, after hitting a 12-month low in early March.

The ISEQ closed at just over 2,800 points yesterday – Friday’s daily fall being “only” by 25 points. This means it has added nearly 1,000 points since March 10 and recovered more than €10 billion in overall value since that time.

On that day in March, the combined value of Irish-listed shares was just under €29bn and the ISEQ closed at a 12-month low of 1,880.36 points. This day last year it was at a high of 4,975 points with a combined share value of €65.6bn. At the beginning of this year, the ISEQ’s combined value was just over €33bn.

Yesterday, that had risen to just under €41bn and last month the index was nudging the 3,000-point mark again. What’s more, the combined market value of Irish financial stocks has gone from just under €3.3bn in early January to a current level of €4.4bn.

Even with yesterday’s general inactivity, there were more downs than ups; although most of these were only minor. Most of the banking stocks fell – AIB by 2c to €1.72 and Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P) by 14c (over 4%) to €3.16 – but Bank of Ireland held firm at €1.74.

Elsewhere, IFG was up by nearly 10.5% or 9c to 95c and FBD Insurance gained more than 5%, or a healthy 32c, to close at €6.62.

Paddy Power’s closing price of €17.10 represented a 46c daily decline, while Merrion Pharmaceuticals, which earlier this week announced plans to significantly expand its R&D base in Dublin, fell by 9.5% (39c) to €3.72.

Building materials and insulation products provider Kingspan was a rare climber in yesterday’s trades, rising by 13c to a closing price of €4.50.

Glencar Mining – the Dublin-based gold exploration company which yesterday announced that it has reached agreement (pending shareholder approval) to be sold to international gold- mining giant Gold Fields for €32.5m – jumped nearly 91% to 10c per share.

On the European markets the CAC in Paris slipped by 0.1% to 3,370.61 points and the DAX in Frankfurt fell by 0.3% to 5,229.36 points.