ISEQ closes year with 2% rise while Nikkei at lowest level since 1980s

IRELAND’s ISEQ index finished the year’s last trading session with a near 2% rise — its second consecutive daily increase — closing at just over 2,900 points.

In all, the Irish market was one of the best performing European stock exchanges over the course of 2011.

Yesterday’s half-day session saw small gains for the likes of Paddy Power, Origin Enterprises, Dragon Oil, Grafton Group, Glanbia, IFG, Kenmare Resources, Greencore and Smurfit Kappa.

Bigger gains were evident for the likes of CRH, Tullow Oil, Kingspan, Elan and Kerry Group; while Irish Continental Group — up by 62c — and bakery group, Aryzta — up by 86c — were the big winners.

Providence Resources remained unchanged at €2.47, despite announcing the completion of the sale of its Nigerian assets, while FBD — which announced the sale of three of its non-core subsidiaries for a combined consideration of €8.5m — was up by 5c at €6.50.

International trading began on a downbeat note with Tokyo’s Nikkei Index rising by 0.7%, to 8,455 points, but down by over 17% on the end of 2010 to its lowest reading since the early 1980s.

This year’s tough performance on Japan’s benchmark index was, however, strongly prompted by the country’s year of national disasters.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed up 0.2% yesterday, but finished the year down by 20%.

In Paris, the CAC-40 was up slightly. Spain’s IBEX index was also marginally up, despite the Spanish government saying its budget deficit is now likely to reach 8% of GDP this year, rather than the original forecast of just 6%.

There, too, were marginal rises on Europe’s other two big bourses, the FTSE-100 in London and Germany’s DAX.

The latter two exchanges closed the year down by 5.5% and 14.7%.

The performance over the year of the ISEQ in Dublin was stellar, in comparison; with the Irish benchmark index down by only 0.6% over the 12 months since last December.