Both major airlines saw their share price fall amid continued wrangling over the future of Shannon. Aer Lingus fell from 2.42 to 2.40 over the week, with Ryanair capitalising on the depressed market to up its shareholding in the company. Ryanair investors didn't reward the firm for its decision, with its share price losing 8.6% to close at 4.93.

Banks had to deal with the impact of the credit crunch and AIBmanaged to hold an even keel, closing 18.65, up 1.35% in the week.

Bank of Ireland did not fare as well, ending the week at 13.09, down 1.87%.

The best-performing bank was Anglo Irish, which finished the week at 13.80, gaining 2.99%.

European stocks fell for a fifth week, the longest losing streak since July 2004, on concern that a rout in global credit markets will hurt earnings and erode economic growth. Siemens, Europe's largest engineering company (down 4.3%), and Arcelor Mittal, the world's biggest steel maker (down 4.8%), paced declines by companies more sensitive to economic swings.

Ciba Specialty Chemicals was down 13%, losing the most in almost six years after the world's largest maker of colours for plastics said selling prices fell and raw-materials prices rose.

The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index fell 0.8% to 359.98 in the week, recovering most of its earlier losses after the US Federal Reserve unexpectedly lowered the rate at which it lends money to banks to ease the effects of a rout in global credit markets. The measure has dropped 10% since reaching a six-and-ahalf-year high on 1 June on concern that defaults among US borrowers with the poorest credit profiles may spill over to other markets.

National benchmarks declined in all 18 western European markets, except for the UK and Germany. The UK's FTSE 100 rose 0.4% and Germany's DAX gained 0.5%, while France's CAC 40 Index lost 1.6%. The Stoxx 50 added 0.4%, while the Euro Stoxx 50, a measure for the European region, decreased 0.1%.

Smith & Nephew lost 6.1%.

The company recalled 185 hip-replacement implants in the UK and the US after at least two patients were forced to have surgery to replace improperly fitting devices.

Nestle, the world's largest food company, jumped 9.9%, pushing an index for European food companies to its largest weekly gain in two months.

The company said on Wednesday that first-half profit increased 18% to 4.92 billion Swiss francs ( 3.02bn) as the maker of Dreyer's icecream passed on higher milk, sugar and coffee prices to consumers.

Profit beat the 4.56 billionfranc median estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The Stoxx 600 Food & Beverage Index added 2.7%.

Royal KPN rallied 9.3%.

The largest Dutch telephone company said it is not in talks to buy Bouygues' mobilephone unit because it's already in the process of acquiring Getronics.

Milestones

THE first compact disc was released 25 years ago, sparking a global revolution in the music industry and bringing digitisation into the home. Around 200 billion CDs have been sold since Abba's final studio album The Visitors rolled off the Philips production line in Germany in 1982 for US release.

Numbers

.DUBLIN ISEQ 8,106.47 Down 2.88% on week
.EUROPE DJ Stoxx 50 4,157.20 Down 0.10% on week
.LONDON FTSE 6,064.20 Up 0.42% on week
.NEW YORK DOW 13,079.68 Down 1.21% Nasdaq 2,505.03 Down 1.57% .
.OIL Brent = $69.41 Down 1.44% on week
.EURO/DOLLAR 1 = $1.348 Down 1.53%

Equity movers

IRISH SHARES

GAINERS

Company Price + %
Providence 0.09 5.88
Qualceram 1.91 4.95
Donegal Creameries 6.70 3.88
Anglo Irish 13.80 2.99

LOSERS

Company Price - %
Petroneft 0.47 30.88
Siteserv 0.45 18.18
Glencar 0.126 14.29
IFG Group 1.87 0.95
Dragon Oil 2.85 10.38
Kenmare 0.75 9.64
Petroceltic 0.13 9.09
Blackrock 0.42 8.70
CPL 6.35 7.97
Elan 13.00 7.80

INTERNATIONAL

GAINERS

Company Price + %
Britvic �3.15 0.61
JP Morgan Chase $47.01 6.24
Ceva $8.26 4.82
BT �3.08 4.66

LOSERS

Company Price - %
Babcock & Brown Ltd A$18.80 21.14
Babcock & Brown Cap A$3.85 15.57
Toyota Y6190 12.69
Wal-Mart $43.49 5.60
Blackstone $24.08 4.75
Cisco $29.99 4.46
China Mobile HKD 81.00 4.31
Siemens 88.32 4.28
McDonalds 47.57 3.72
UBS SFR63.10 3.44

The week ahead

MONDAY
UK public sector net cash requirement (PSNCR) US leading indicators

TUESDAY
Medtronic annual results Euroland external trade

WEDNESDAY
Euroland EU current account Euroland industrial orders Irish industrial disputes, quarter two, 2007 Results: Trintech, Babcock & Brown, BHP Billiton

THURSDAY
Irish wholesale prices Irish external trade Irish retail sales Bank of Japan rate decision, monthly report

FRIDAY
UK GDP US durable goods US new home sales Eurozone (PMI) Irish road freight survey Results: HJ Heinz, Royal Bank of Canada

The week that was

RUSSIA'S MAN OF STEEL GOES FOR GOLD

WHILE Russia's billionaire oligarchs are flocking to London, none seemed to show any interest in Ireland until mining plc Celtic Resources last week announced that a subsidiary of Russian steel giant Severstal had spent 3.07m in acquiring a 22% shareholding.

Severstal is 90% owned by Alexei Mordashov, the man who steered the company from being a communist-era relic to one of Russia's industrial powerhouses. Nicknamed 'the tank' both for his physical presence and dealmaking prowess, he vaulted himself onto the Forbes Rich List in the process with an estimated net worth of $3.5bn.

How he rose so high was the subject of an investigation by the late Forbes journalist Paul Klebnikov, who alleged in 2004 that he had gained control of Severstal by using company funds to buy staff shares, although Mordashov insisted there was nothing underhand about the transactions.

Severstal's investment shouldn't be considered the prelude to increased Russian interest in Ireland, since it was something much closer to home it is interested in, namely Celtic's goldmining operation in Kazakhstan.

BIOTECH FIRM SHARES FORTUNES OF DRUG-TAKING CYCLISTS

CALIFORNIA biotech firm Amgen, which has plans to bring 1,100 jobs to Cork by 2010, had a bad week when it was forced to announce the lay-off of up to 14% of its 18,000-strong workforce in response to poor sales of its anaemia drug, Aranesp.

The drug is a synthetic version of Erythropoietin, more commonly known as EPO, which Amgen developed back in the 1980s. It stimulates red blood cell growth in patients who have dangerously low levels of the cells.

In a bizarre coincidence, the most prominent illegal users of EPO have also fallen on hard times. Large numbers of otherwise healthy professional cyclists have been using EPO for years to boost the amount of oxygen that can be carried in their blood and allow them to ride far harder.

After a big drug bust in Spain last year, cycling authorities have been cracking down and this year's Tour de France saw numerous prominent riders given the boot.

Even more odd was the fact that Amgen chose to sponsor this year's Tour of California, the most prominent pro race in the US. Race organisers bragged that no rider tested positive during the tour, but it was later revealed that no one was actually tested for EPO. Amgen executives were reportedly livid at the oversight.

They have more to worry about now.

US TECHNOLOGY BOSS TAKES LANGUAGE TO A NEW LEVEL

THE babble of business is an obscure cant; the language of the technology business moreso, and the language used by American tech firm management types the most impenetrable of the lot.

Business hacks are well used to linguistic obfuscation from these experts in the arcane art of "synergistic leveragments" and other such mind twisters, but comments from Citrix vice president Wes Wasson took the biscuit last week.

Asked if Citrix's $500m acquisition of virtualisation software house XenSource was designed to help it compete with virtualisation giant VMware, he said the two firms enjoyed a relationship based on "co-opetition".

However, Wasson may be on to something here because if Citrix and VMware do co-operate to compete then value in the virtualisation ecosystem will go through the roof.

VMware enjoyed a stratospheric flotation on Tuesday that valued it at nearly $20bn after its share price climbed 75% in its first day of trading.

Watch this virtual space.