Good Afternoon ,
The ISEQ index closed lower today by nearly 2% despite a very impressive performance from CRH which rose +5.8% despite going ex dividend by 48.5c , the Nil paid rights were very much in demand rising nearly +19%. The building materials sector which had been so weak has really rebounded over the past week despite the tough market conditions and held and extended their gains through as the market rallied yesterday. Grafton +56.75 today , Kingspan which looked like it had no floor two weeks ago now trading at 2.37 +3% today. McInerney signed a new agreement with their banks and the stock rallied +11% to 10c
Elan which was the subject of a mention by Morningstar newsletter as one of the next probable merger or deal candidates actually fell -4% in ADR and -6.2% in the ordinaries . ICON ontinues to struggle as the erger mania in large pharma continues and rumour of some of C=ICONS larges customers merging causing a defininte scare. The rumour is that either Bristol Myers or Astra Zeneca might bid for Sanofi and this would be negative as all are major clients of ICON.
C&C drifted after the management team spread their story yesterday. I was impressed with their level headedness and clarity of thoughts about what they need to do to stabilise and re-engineer the business for today’s demand conditions.
Not much action in the Food stocks, kerry down -2.5% , Aryzta -1.5% , Total produce gained a further 6% to 26c. Glanbia -2.6%
The Action today was in Aer Lingus and we meet the management now having already listened to their presentation twice. Stock got killed after their profit warning and the shock that the guidance given on January 6th during the Ryanair takeover bid battle turns out to be 'unachievable' if I can be so polite. Ryanair are furious as are many shareholders with the change in guidance from being profitable to a loss for 2009 of about 50m .. share price tanked today , down 27% to 58c but dealt as low at 48c earlier. Ryanair were off today -3.6%
Johnston Press had poor results which hit Indo’s a further -9.6% to 10.4c.
Paddy Power drifted after the strong run last week but also because the Irish are having a good time in Cheltenham. Should not be material to Paddy Power overall though. Stock was down -1.76%
The Irish financials did ok , except Irish Life gave up yesterdays gains and fell -12% , the stock seems to be negatively correlated to AIB and BOI over the last few days. AIB was up +7.7% , BOI fell -3.2% and
Tullow had results this morning , no major surprises and no change of recommendation but the stock fell by 6% after the run into the results.
Typical of the recent rallies to fizzle out . Sentiment at least boosted somewhat even if the higher prices are not really holding.
Have Good Evening.
Liam
___________________________________________
Liam Boggan
Merrion Stockbrokers
www.merrion-capital.com
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