ISEQ increase continues driven by CRH and Tullow
Dublin’s rise was driven by particularly strong price increases in building materials giant CRH and exploration specialist Tullow Oil; as well as solid gains for the likes of Elan, United Drug, Kingspan, C&C, Kerry Group and IFG.
CRH gained 80c (following on from a healthy 63c rise on Wednesday) to close yesterday’s session at €12.75. Tullow Oil’s increase amounted to 61c, bringing the company’s Dublin-quoted share price to €15.11. Among the few fallers, however, were food group Aryzta, which shed 20c to close at €33 and Irish Continental Group (ICG) which was down 5c at €14.10. Betting and gaming group, Paddy Power fell by 30c to €38.70. In all, the ISEQ rose by 69 points to close at 2,550 points.
In London, the FTSE gained nearly 4%, aided by the announcement that the Bank of England is set to spend another £75 billion in trying to stimulate the British economy. And, across the rest of Europe, exchanges were up as the ECB confirmed that it would move to help stabilise eurozone banks.
The EuroStoxx-50 was up by just under 3.2%; while the DAX in Frankfurt rose by 3.15% and the CAC-40 in Paris gained 3.41%.
Elsewhere, there was a 2.68% rise on the Milan Stock Exchange, with Madrid’s IBEX index up by nearly 2.7%.
Wednesday’s gains on Wall Street meant that the main Asian markets returned to good growth, yesterday — the Nikkei Index in Tokyo rising by 1.66% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng up by nearly 5.7%.
“The market optimism may be explained by new initiatives that have emerged as part of efforts to quell both the sovereign debt and the banking crises,” said Stephane Ekolo, chief European strategist at Market Securities in London.
Early trading on Wall Street, yesterday, saw marginal gains on the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq and the S&P-500.
