WEAKNESS among the financials and a continued stronger tone to the industrials were the main features of a dull market in Dublin, but there were signs of a movement of funds from the financials to industrials, particularly by British investors.
CRH once again was the star turn and rose to an all time high of 500p before closing up 7p on the day and 22p on the week on 497p. Smurfit was also better and closed up just over a penny on 153p. Other industrials to go firmer were Greencore, which was up 8p on just off its all time high while Kingspan was up 3p on 223p after announcing a couple of acquisitions in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Most of the financials were weaker, with AIB don 2p on 353p and Bank of Ireland down 3p on 453p, while Irish Life was 4p lower on the sterling equivalent of 255p. There was also a late sterling deal in Irish Permanent which brought the share up 4p to 404p.
Gilts were very quiet after a weaker morning session, and failed to respond to weaker than expected US employment figures. The US non farm payroll figures fell 201,000 compared to a December rise of 161,000 with the unemployment rate up from 5.6 per cent in December to 5.8 per cent in January. These sort of figures are usually good for bonds - but not yesterday. One factor that may have prevented a movement on bond markets was that the January figures may have been distorted by the bad weather in the eastern US in January.
