Irish market remains flat

The Irish index of shares was broadly flat this afternoon, mirroring markets across Europe.

By 1.15pm, the Iseq was up by only 0.1 per cent at 2912.82.

Among the main movers of the session was CPL Resources, which saw its shares rise 5 per cent by 1.15pm, reaching €3.10. The company yesterday reported pre-tax profits rose 33 per cent in the second half of the year, while sales grew 22 per cent year on year and 14 per cent compared with the first six months of the year.

Shares in Aer Lingus rose 0.94 per cent after the company confirmed it would enter talks with cabin crew in an effort to resolve a dispute that has seen the airline cancel numerous flights and bring in aircraft from other carriers to continue its schedule. By 1.15pm, shares in the airline were trading at €1.07. Rival airline Ryanair was down .03 per cent to €3.63.

Bank of Ireland shares gained 0.9 per cent to trade at 32.7 cent. However, AIB was trading off 1.3 per cent at 25.18 cent. Both banks today said they would register €5 billion of government-backed notes to be eligible as collateral for European Central Bank loans.

Irish Life & Permanent meanwhile was up 0.3 per cent.

Across Europe, stocks retraced some of their early declines and by 1152 GMT, the benchmark FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading European shares was down 0.1 per cent, led by mining stocks and remaining up 0.4 per cent on the week.

US stock futures pointed to a flat open on Wall Street, after the DJIA closed at a more than 2.5-year high yesterday. "We expect equity markets to move into a consolidation phase in the next couple of months," said Tammo Greetfeld, equity strategist at UniCredit.

"People are waiting for the U.S. GDP figures, but it would only move the market in a big way if the figures significantly deviate from the consensus."

The slight weakness in European shares continued a broad-based sell-off in Asia overnight, with Japanese stocks hit by the previous day's S&P sovereign downgrade and other indices by inflation concerns.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei average ended down 1.1 percent, while the MSCI world equity index and Thomson Reuters global stock index were both trading down 0.2 per cent by 1153 GMT.

Emerging market stocks fared worse, falling 0.6 per cent.

The pace of economic recovery in the United States, efforts to stem the euro zone debt crisis and concerns about building inflationary pressures continue to guide markets across the region against the backdrop of the quarterly earnings season.

Additional reporting: Reuters