DUBLIN REPORT:THE EARLY morning good mood on the Iseq couldn't be sustained, with values beginning to slip before elevenses, sinking lower as lunchtime approached and failing to recover even after investors and traders had satisfied their carbohydrate cravings.
Post-lunch equities desks were hit, as always, with the spillover of market sentiment from New York, which opened weakly amid rumours of further defaults and write-downs among the world's biggest financial groups.
Analysts at Merrill Lynch, itself a casualty of the credit crunch, reduced its full-year earnings predictions for Citigroup, and the move sent fresh tremors of anxiety around Wall Street and, by extension, world stock markets.
In Dublin, the financial stocks were all duly dragged downwards. AIB was the most subdued, losing 38 cent to close at €13.02, closing 2.8 per cent lower.
Unusually, it was Anglo Irish Bank that escaped the lightest. It fell just 1.4 per cent to €9.18, down 13 cent.
Building materials group CRH posted a consistently solid set of full-year results, and although its outlook for the year ahead was slightly gloomier than in recent statements, the stock managed to end the day in positive territory after a bit of swinging around.
By the close, it had added 33 cent to finish up almost 1.4 per cent at €24.03, and was naturally the most traded stock of the day, although dealers partly attributed its share price performance on the day to over-aggressive selling off on Monday.
Kingspan fell back after an international broker picked up on its Monday warning that earnings will be "appreciably" lower.
There was also heavy trading again in Independent News & Media, with eight million shares exchanging hands in both Dublin and London.
Iseq: 6,202.97 (-87.83)
Settlement date: March 7th
