Negative end to year as shares drop

DESPITE the usual low levels of trading for the year’s final full-day of share activity, negative sentiment governed any movement that did occur, with most of the major exchanges showing slight drops.

Yesterday got off to a less-than-promising start with the main Asian markets of Tokyo and Hong Kong showing mixed fortunes; the former falling by over 1% closing with the US markets showing a continuation of their recent trends of thin trading. This despite positive jobless figures, which detailed how America’s unemployment levels are now at their lowest in over two years.

In Europe, each of the main exchanges were down slightly as European stocks dropped by their highest amount in a month, mainly driven by speculation that the rally of this year has pushed valuations on equities beyond the outlook for both corporate and economic growth.

London’s FTSE fell below the 6,000 point mark, dragged downwards by falling oil prices; while Frankfurt’s DAX was down by 1.2% and the CAC-40 in Paris dived 1%.

In Dublin, the ISEQ — which is open today for a half-day’s trading session — dipped by just 0.3%, or nine points, to close at 2,878 points.

While climbers were few and far between — Glanbia up 11c; housebuilder, Abbey up 10c, Providence Resources up 15c and FBD up 6c — notable fallers were the usually strong food-related stocks of Kerry (down by 25c) and Aryzta, which lost another 20c after a very mixed week in the run-up to Christmas.

Drug firm, Elan also lost 13c and both of the airline stocks lost ground. Irish Continental Group (ICG) was down by 45c at €15.30 and the building stocks of Grafton, CRH and Kingspan all dipped too.

There was also the usual mixed news for the banking stocks — Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P) unchanged at €1; Bank of Ireland up by 1c at 38c and AIB down by the same amount at 31c.