A strong performance from Anglo Irish Bank helped push the Iseq into positive territory today. By 4.30pm, the market was around 1.1 per cent – or 70 points – ahead at 6,460 points.
In a positive trading statement, Anglo reported a 17 per cent rise in underlying pre-tax profits to €647 million for the fiscal half ending March 31st. It also said net income increased to €548 million, or 72 cents a share, compared with €462 million, or 62.9 cents, a year earlier.
By close of business, the bank had added 41 cents to its share price to reach €9.61 with a strong volume of 7 million shares traded.
The other financials put in a strong performance on the back of Anglo's statement although volumes were generally light. Irish Life & Permanent was 1.4 per cent ahead at €11.05, while Bank of Ireland was 1.3 per cent stronger at €9.12. AIB was 0.9 per cent up at €13.94.
In other corporate news, construction giant CRH at its AGM warned of challenging markets in the year ahead and said profitability in the first four months of this year was behind the figure for the same period last year. The stock was marginally down, shedding just 3 cents to €23.98, although volumes were relatively light at 1.8 million.
Elsewhere, there was some buying in Smurfit which picked up 19 cents to €8.37 as around 1 million shares were traded.
Grafton ended a bit softer, down more than 1 per cent to €5.40 on decent volumes, while Ryanair continued to find itself under pressure with 8 million shares traded as it slipped back 4 cents to €2.93.
In Europe, stocks rose for the first time in three days after earnings from Lafarge, Deutsche Boerse AG and British American Tobacco beat analysts' estimates.
National benchmark indexes rose in all 18 western European markets. Frances' CAC gained 0.7 per cent and Germany's DAX climbed 0.8 per cent. The UK's FTSE 100 advanced 0.7 per cent.