Liams Last Post : Mayday holidays dry up volumes , newsflow light , C&C pleasant surprise

Good Afternoon ,


Mayday Mayday Mayday… what to do now… many have abandoned ship early for the weekend and split for sunnier more interesting places…. How could you ? when all the excitement is at home…

Surprisingly we now find that the Irish equity market is in positive territory year to date +11.9% , Europe is close to positive territory , the Nasdaq index is +9% though the Dow Jones is down -7% and the FTSE is down just -4%.

European major markets were closed for the Mayday bank holiday , Ireland and UK are closed on Monday so the impetus to trade today was muted.

The ISEQ index was closed today as the Index is run off the stocks which trade on the German Xetra platform. CRH succumbed to a bout of London based profit taking as were a lot of the stocks early this morning but there was no cnviction behind the mark down and most prices had recovered a lot of the losses as the day wore on.

The Irish news of note this morning was the relaease of Cider Off trade data by AC Neilsen .It was greeted very positively and the stock jumped +7.5%. It is amazing how suddenly people are getting excited about this one again. In a period where the overall LAD was boosted by Easter (LAD volumes up 15.5%), Magners volumes increased by 2.4% mom and 48% yoy. This follows yoy increases of 32.6% in March (data revised downwards slightly in this report from that released 4 weeks ago) and 6.7% in February in the off trade segment. Value (in £) grew 8% yoy vs 12.3% growth in March. Magners volume/value gap yoy has narrowed from the March data, indicating an easing of promotional activity. Magners’ share of the LAD was 1.26% in the four weeks to Apr 18, from 1.34% in the four weeks to Mar 21 and 0.92% in the four weeks to Feb 21.

If Cash levels are as high as being reported at Long only investment funds and the fast leveraged money has gone from the game , then this rally could be sustained as the cash is slowly invested into the market with everyone actually investing despite simultaneously protesting that they are looking for a pullback before getting involved.

As we head for 5pm , Wall street is getting over the delay in the Banks Stress test release to afternoon of May 7th.


In Ireland all eyes are on Croke Park and the sell out of Croke Park ahead of the big game tomorrow. C’mon Leinster….


Have a great weekend ,
Enjoy the break ,


Liam

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