Once again, the Irish market took a Friday tumble in response to the overnight fall on Wall Street and further weakness on the New York market yesterday. The market was made more nervous by the onset of the long weekend in the UK, a holiday period that coincides unfortunately with a period of instability on world markets.
Hopes that the turbulence of earlier in the week had come to an end proved to be unfounded, and markets around the world are going to have to cope with the realisation that Wall Street is going to remain turbulent for some time to come. At this stage, it is difficult to see market making any substantial gains with too many uncertainties about German interest rates, British interest rates and the strengths of the dollar, the deutschmark and sterling.
In Dublin, it was no surprise that major financial shares took the brunt of the selling pressure, with Bank of Ireland and Irish Life suffering the most. Bank of Ireland closed down 18p on 771p, Irish Life lost 11p to 335p, while AIB was 9p lower on 571p.
Leading industrials were also lower, with CRH 9p lower on 725p and Smurfit off 10p on 220p.
Elsewhere, it was also red ink with Greencore 4p lower on 318p, Ryanair off 6p on 317p, Independ- ent down 5p on 445p and Golden Vale down 2p on 78p. Heiton was unchanged on 160p as venture capital fund ACT 94 disclosed that it had sold its entire holding of one million shares, equivalent to just over 2.1 per cent of Heiton.
