Wall Street might have perked up in an expectation that Mr Alan Greenspan will confine his rise in interest rates to a quarter-point, but the Irish market continued to fall and was down another 1 per cent, with financial shares in particular taking the brunt of the negative sentiment.
Bank of Ireland shares have still to find a floor after the Alliance & Leicester debacle and fell another 30 cents yesterday to #16.20 (£12.76) - a long, long way from the #20.30 (£15.99) reached in the initial misguided euphoria when the A&L merger plan first broke. AIB - soon to depart the Eurostoxx 50 - was another heavy faller and lost 27 cents to #12.63 (£9.95).
CRH was slightly lower on #17.80 (£14.02), while Smurfit drifted one cent easier to #2.285 (£1.80) with speculation that the group is heading the bidding for the Danisco packaging business in the UK and Denmark, a potential acquisition first reported in this column two months ago.
Greencore lost nine cents to #3.11 (£2.45), IWP was eight cents easier on #2.22 (£1.75) while Irish Continental lost five cents to #12.45 (#9.81) amid speculation that its Irish Sea ferries are facing a shutdown in the dispute over manning on the new Dublin Swift service. Ryanair, however, stays on the up and up and closed 30 cents higher on #10.00 (£7.88)
Minmet disclosed that it placed 4.7 million shares at 1p (1.27 cents) to raise £470,000 to fund exploration projects in Portugal, Brazil and the UK.
