Most markets give up gains

MOST stock markets gave away some of the gains made earlier in the week yesterday — failing in their bid for a third consecutive day’s rally.

Ireland’s ISEQ — by no means a disaster zone — fell by just under 1%, following strong gains on Monday and Tuesday.

While the likes of Aryzta, C&C (which suffered an earnings downgrade by Davy Stockbrokers), CRH, DCC, FBD, Icon and Paddy Power all suffered falls, Irish climbers were led by Tullow Oil — which announced a high quality oil find in its Enyenra-3A appraisal well off the coast of Ghana — Smurfit Kappa, Dragon Oil, Elan and Providence Resources, the latter despite a disappointing set of interim results. In all, the ISEQ rallied from earlier losses in the day to close down by just over 0.7%.

Yesterday’s sudden halt to market gains acrossEurope occurred as optimism waned over whether or not the continent’s policymakers are really any closer to finding a solution to the eurozone’s debt crisis. In addition to that investors were biding their time ahead of a German parliamentary vote, scheduled for later today, on expanding the region’s bail-out fund.

London’s FTSE was down by 1.44%, while France’s CAC-40 index, the DAX in Frankfurt and the IBEX in Spain were each down by just under 1%. It was the continent’s periphery economies that showed the only gains, with the likes of Poland, Iceland, Portugal and Greece all seeing rises.

Some Asian markets enjoyed a third day’s straight increase, albeit with only marginal rises evident on the Nikkei in Tokyo. Positive business investment data in the US, meanwhile, led to early gains being seen on the Dow Jones, while the Nasdaq opened down by 0.2%.