ISEQ closes up as financials recover

The ISEQ closed up 10 points today to 5085 as the banks recovered quickly from earlier losses which saw three of them stumble by nearly 1%.

Irish L&P was the only loser here dipping 5 cent to €13.00. AIB moved up 6 cent in busy trading and BOI added 25 to €11.30, on decent volume. Anglo was up 10 cent to €12.75.

The biggest percentage gainer of today was IT recruitment company CPL who gained 15 cent, or 20%, to €0.90.

Fyffes was trading up 6 to €1.71 with 1.7 m shares traded.

Greencore fell 9 cent to €4.27 also busy, with 1.3m shares traded and takeover speculation still rife. Waterford Wedgwood was another busy stock, adding 1 cent to close at €0.26.

Ryanair shares fell by nearly 2% today, dropping 19 cent to 6.65. Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary today said he was concerned that the outcome of the EU probe into the no-frills airline's operations at Charleroi would "devastate" low-cost air travel in Europe. O'Leary added he still believed that the long-awaited ruling by the European Commission would go against the airline.

London shares declined in line with Wall Street after a report pointed to weakness in the US jobs market and as Shell announced a cut in its oil reserves.

The FTSE 100 index was down 26.3 points to 4,467.9 this evening.

Figures released this afternoon from the US Labor department showed that the US economy generated just 1,000 jobs in December, disappointing those expecting evidence of a strengthening labour market to sustain the economic recovery.

On the currency markets the euro is still at record highs against the dollar, which slumped today on the poor job news.

At 6pm the euro was worth €1.284 and £0.695.