A good performance from the two main banks and Ryanair helped the market to close higher yesterday on the first day of trading in covered warrants.
Settlement Date: October 25th
The Investec warrants allow Irish investors take positions on five stocks at a specified date in the future. Dealers said the products were likely to be of mainly retail interest at the moment with institutional investors unlikely to get involved until liquidity in the warrants had been built up.
Some 20,000 call warrants on Anglo Irish Bank were traded at a price of €0.25 per warrant. The warrants give the purchaser the right to buy Anglo shares at €7.50 on March 16th, 2004. Meanwhile, 20,000 call warrants on Ryanair also traded at €0.43, giving the buyer the right to acquire the shares at €7.50 on the same date.
Otherwise, the market had what dealers described as "a steady day". "We have been consolidating which is good as the market has come a long way very quickly," one trader said.
AIB gained 18 cents to €13.20 while Bank of Ireland closed 19 cents higher at €10.63, helping to lift the overall market. Anglo Irish Bank added 11 cents to €6.26 but Irish Life & Permanent missed out on the upward move, closing 10 cents lower at €11.85.
Aside from the banks, Ryanair also had a good day, ending 20 cents higher at €6.30. But CRH fared less well as worries about asbestos continued to hang over the stock. It closed 23 cents lower at €13.47.
Exploration group Arcon was one of the more active stocks on the day with four million shares changing hands. It closed one cent lower at €0.03 as one buyer snapped up 3.5 million shares.
