Liams Last Post : Irish Life , Elan , Smurfit and Aer Lingus the stocks of note today.

Good Afternoon ,

 

The big mover today was Irish Life after the media reports about the completion subject to regulatory approval of the VIF securitisation of their life business. This should be no surprise but given the sharp falls inthe share price before christmas , signs of them achieving concrete things were always going to be welcomed by the market. the stock was up +5% today.

 

Elan and Icon have been super performers since the start of the year and Elan continues to go better as the market digested the implication sof the JC virus test talked about yesterday. Icon continues to find favour as well in the USA.

 

Smurfit shrugged off the news that a Spanish privately owned company is to build a 400k tonne recycled paper machine which wil test the ;discipline fo the palyers inthe industry. Saica is short paper themselves so they ar producing for their own use but they will either squeeze less effiient producers into taking downtime or prices will struggle if the market does not expand .... hmmm , anyway Smurfit was up 0.6% today.

 

Aer Lingus was up also , this one loks like it has captured a bit of interest with the investor day scheduled for the 26th of January in London (so they are serious about having something to say...) and the profit pgrade which tool the market completely by surprise last friday.

 

Paddy Power has recovered a bit having presented a broef opportunity to buy the shares at or below the Eur24 level for 2 days.

 

International markets also continued to be positive today up between 0.3% and 0.8% with London whihc had been weaker yesterday up +0.5% whereas the US is effectively flat +0.15%

 

Have a good evening

 

Liam

 

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