Positive start to week for markets

INTERNATIONAL stock markets made an upbeat start to the week yesterday, seemingly putting the volatility of the past couple of weeks behind them and building on a strong close on Friday.

While a crackdown on short selling in some European countries boosted trading at the end of last week, early trading yesterday was positive ahead of today’s crunch eurozone stability talks between the French and German governments.

In Dublin, the ISEQ index was up by 1.14% to a 2,549 point close. Building materials giant, CRH — which publishes interim results this morning — rose by 7c to €12.16; while Kerry Group, which has its own results out tomorrow, jumped by 77c to €26.80. Other food stocks performed well also, with Greencore rising by 1c, Glanbia up 20c and Irish-Swiss bakery group, Aryzta up by 34c to €32.84. C&C was up by 8c, while support services specialist, DCC rose by 25c to €18.

There was little movement in the aviation stocks, however, with Ryanair inching up by 4c to close the day at €3.09 and Aer Lingus static at 60c on a day when it scotched rumours that it was planning to resume services from Dublin to California.

Each of the main European bourses showed solid gains; London’s FTSE rising by 0.7% to 5,359 points; Paris’ CAC up by 1.1% and the DAX in Frankfurt rising by 1.3% to just over 6,000 points.

Industry consolidation activity — mainly through Google’s takeover of Motorola’s mobile business — drove early gains in the US; the Dow Jones up by 118 points yesterday afternoon and the Nasdaq rising by nearly 1%.

The Asian markets, too, started the week positively. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up to 20,260 points — a 3.2% rise on Friday’s close — while Tokyo’s Nikkei index closed 1.4% higher and passed the 9,000 point mark on the back of better-than-anticipated GDP figures, showing that the country is recovering well, economically, after the tsunami earlier this year.