Alan Greenspan's cautionary comments about the state of the US economy and Merrill Lynch's warning about stock valuations put a damper on market trading. But the Irish market fell only marginally, supported by modest gains by index heavyweight Elan.
Settlement Day: January 17th
On the home market, volumes were low, with only Ryanair, Smurfit and CRH trading more than a million shares. Ryanair was unchanged on €6.70 in volume of just under two million shares, while CRH, which reported its twice-yearly batch of bolt-on acquisitions, drifted 15 cents lower to €18.95.
Smurfit was also unchanged on €2.40. Smurfit and US associate Smurfit Stone has been given the nod by Deutsche Bank Alex Brown, which believes that the containerboard part of the paper and forest products industry may be the first to "turn" as the US economy rebounds.
Financial shares were mainly lower, with AIB - rumoured to be planning the sale of its Govett fund management offshoot in the UK - down 18 cents on €12.00, while Bank of Ireland lost eight cents to €10.32.
Green continued its good new year run and gained 15 cents to €6.65, but Jurys, which rose strongly ahead of last week's interim results, fell 15 cents to €8.95.
Marlborough was unchanged on €0.32 as Merrill Lynch - its biggest institutional shareholder - disclosed that it had been a big seller in recent weeks.
Merrill disclosed that it now holds 2.14 million shares, or 6.8 per cent, indicating that it has unloaded 690,000 Marlborough shares in the past three months - a period during which Marlborough shares have never traded higher than €0.50.
