Market slips amid downgrades

The ISEQ index of Irish shares slipped 4.82 to 3,093.44 yesterday as ratings agency Moody’s announced that it was downgrading six European countries and moving the outlook for the UK and France to negative.

US retails sales figures also disappointed the market despite showing an increase on last month.

The Irish financials had a mixed day with AIB and Bank of Ireland both giving back some of their recent gains. The former lost 5.4% to 12.1c while the latter was off 0.6c or 4.4% at 12.9c. Irish Life and Permanent bucked the trend adding 0.4c to finish the day up 8.7% at 4.6c.