Irish bond yields fall

The yield on Irish 10-year government bonds lost four basis points today, following declines in Italian and Spanish bonds.

The yield on Irish 10-year government bonds lost four basis points today, following declines in Italian and Spanish bonds.

The security's yield fell to 4.47 per cent, with the spread between Irish bonds and German bunds at 129 basis points.

The yield on the 10-year Italian bond slipped 1 basis point to 3.99 per cent this morning in London, and the Spanish yield declined two basis points to 3.87 per cent.

The Portugese bond's yield was down three basis points to 4.36 per cent.

The spread, between the Italian and German securities narrowed four basis points to 79 basis points, according to Bloomberg generic prices.

European equities were subdued as a sharp rise in Greek banks following news of the rescue package for the debt-plagued country was offset by weaker pharmaceutical and commodity stocks.

The Irish market was off just under half a per cent, down 16.28 points by 2pm to 3314.52.

Shares in AIB were down 2.5 per cent to €1.50, while Bank of Ireland was up almost 1 per cent to €1.74 and Irish Life and Permanent rose 2.1 per cent to €3.37.

At 1107 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was almost flat at 1,101.84 points after rising to 1,105.08 - its highest in more than 18 months. The index closed 1.3 per cent higher on Friday, notching up its sixth straight week of gains.

The European benchmark is up 5 per cent this year and has jumped more than 70 per cent from its record low in March 2009.

Banks were among the top gainers, with the STOXX Europe 600 banking index rising 1 percent and the Greek banking index surging 7.6 per cent. National Bank, EFG Eurobank, Piraeus Bank and Alpha Bank gained between 8.3 and 11.4 per cent.

"Greece has managed to dominate the headlines. It just shows how fragile investor sentiment is. There is some relief that we have finally got a transparent bailout mechanism in place," said Henk Potts, equity strategist at Barclays Wealth.


In Europe, gains in banks were offset by weaker pharmaceutical shares. GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis, Roche Holding, Sanofi-Aventis and Shire fell 0.3 to 1.4 per cent.

On the Dublin market, Elan was down 0.6 per cent to €5.80, while United Drug shed 1 per cent to trade at €2.60 shortly before 2pm.

Miners were also under pressure, with the European mining index down 1 percent after gaining in the previous three sessions.

BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Antofagasta, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Eurasian Natural Resources fell 0.1 to 1.5 per cent.

Additional reporting - Agencies