IRISH BANKS experienced mixed fortunes this week despite a general bounce in European stocks after US President George W Bush promised to help American sub-prime mortgage holders struggle to meet their repayments.
AIB finished the week 3.3% lower than it had started it at 18.74 while Anglo Irish Bank suffered a 50 cent drop to end the week at 13.70. However, the other two major banking stocks, Bank of Ireland and Irish Life & Permanent both made gains during the week.
Bank of Ireland rose almost 1.9% to end at 13.60 while IL&P rose 15 cent to 18.25 over the course of the week.
In the airlines sector, Aer Lingus surprised the market on two counts last week. Firstly, it announced a small pre-tax profit for the first half of the year, when it had generally been expected to lose money.
And secondly, towards the end of Friday's trading, it announced that it had decided to oppose Ryanair's request for an EGM into its decision to withdraw its ShannonHeathrow route on competition grounds.
It's perhaps a measure of how illiquid the stock is that neither event made much impact on its share price, which closed down 3 cent at 2.42.
Meanwhile, Ryanairwas one of big Irish gainers of the week, experiencing a 5.4% rise to leave it at 5.34.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index rose 1.5 % to 375.94 this week, giving a 1.1% loss this month. The enchmark has dropped 6.1% from since 1 June on concern that defaults among US borrowers with the poorest credit profiles will lead to higher financing costs. The Stoxx 50 and the Euro Stoxx 50, a measure for the euro region, both gained 1.3%.
PPR advanced 4.9 % to 126.90. The owner of Gucci Group said first-half profit rose 55 % to 303m after the French retailer acquired sportswear maker Puma. That beat the 277m median estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Nokia surged 7.4 % to 24.17 after the Espoo, Finland-based company unveiled the new 5610, 5310 and N81 music phones, and plans for a simpler user interface to fend off Apple's iPhone.
ST Microelectronics, Europe's largest semiconductor maker, added 2.8 % to 12.78.
Infineon Technologies, Europe's second-biggest, climbed 3.1 % to 11.42.
AccorSA, the world's second-largest lodging company by revenue, rallied 4.2% to 63.01 after first-half profit more than doubled to 596m, beating analysts' estimates.
Whitbread , owner of Premier Inn budget hotels, climbed 4.3% to �16.43.
The company said revenue increased 6.6 % at outlets open at least a year in the 24 weeks ended August 16 and climbed 8 % in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, Goldman, Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns will have trouble boosting profit through next year because of the rout in global credit markets, according to Lehman Brothers.
Milestones
SMOKERS in Britain will get an eyeful from next year, when cigarette packets will feature not just warning labels, but graphic pictures of diseased lungs and rotted-out gums. The worst pictures were selected by the public in a web competition.
Numbers
DUBLIN ISEQ 8400.93 Up 0.88% on week .
EUROPE DJ Stoxx 50 3765.56 Up 1.30% on week .
LONDON FTSE 6303.30 Up 1.72% on week .
NEW YORK Dow 13,357.74 Down 0.16%
Nasdaq 2596.36 Up 0.76% .
OIL Brent = $72.10 Up 3.65% .
EURO/DOLLAR 1=$1.3622 Down 0.3%
Equity movers
IRISH SHARES
GAINERS
Company Price + %
Petroneft Resources 0.60 +15.38%
Kingspan 19.00 +10.14%
Glencar Mining 0.138 +9.52%
AGI Therapeutics 1.53 +8.51%
Siteserv 0.65 +8.37%
Ryanair 5.341 +5.14%
CRH plc 31.80 +4.88%
Glanbia 4.03 +4.68%
LOSERS
Company Price - %
Trintech $3.90 -8.24%
CPL Resources 6.05 -6.92%
DCC 19.40 37%
Thirdforce 0.18 -5.26%
Readymix 1.90 -4.52%
FBD 25.501 9%
Total Produce 0.65 -4.41%
INTERNATIONAL
GAINERS
Company Price + %
China Mobile 106HKD +9.73%
Nokia 24.17 +7.42%
Diageo 059p +4.31%
Cisco $31.85 +3.61%
Babcock&Brown 4.17AUD +3.47%
Intel $25.61 +2.25%
Marks&Spencer 625p +3.39%
BT Group 315.75p +3.19%
HP $49.46 +2.83%
LOSERS
Company Price - %
Lehman Bros $54.92 -9.06%
Blackstone $23.06 -5.57%
Morgan Stanley $61.75 -4.32%
Citigroup $46.56 -4.02%
Merrill Lynch $73.60 -3.53%
JPMorgan Chase $44.45 -3.50%
The week ahead
MONDAY NCB manufacturing PMI EZ manufacturing PMI UK HBOS house price index, manufacturing PMI German manufacturing PMI US public holiday Results: Fyffes, Kingspan
TUESDAY Quarterly national household survey EZ GDP, producer prices Results: Kerry Group, Tullow Oil, Paddy Power, Premier Foods, Kazakhmys, Standard Life, Swiss Life,
WEDNESDAY Anglo Irish bank trading statement NCB services PMI EZ services PMI German services PMI US Fed beige book, pending home sales Irish Internet Association autumn debate on blogging Results: Total Produce
THURSDAY NTR agm Census . . . Principal economic status and industries ECB and BOE interest rate decisions US productivity German industrial orders Results: Horizon, Abbott Group, IFG,
FRIDAY Unemployment US payrolls, wholesale inventories German industrial production
The week that was
IRISH NATIONWIDE Danske Bank appears to have ruled itself out of the bidding for Irish Nationwide when the building society demutualises, according to statements last week by its chief executive.
Peter Staarup said the Danish bank was pursuing organic expansion in the UK with the opening of a London branch of Northern Bank, its Northern Ireland subsidiary, and did not see any suitable opportunities for further acquisitions. Danske also owns National Irish Bank, which it acquired in 2004 from National Australia Bank with Northern Bank for 1.6bn.
Irish Nationwide is expected to sell for 1.5bn- 2bn.
Danske is still busy integrating Sampo, the 4bn Finnish and Baltic bank it bought in February, into its operations and analysts have said it may lack the appetite to take on another institution.
However, the Nordic giant topped the list of likely buyers when Irish Nationwide announced its intention to demutualise a year ago. At the time commentators said Danske would be interested in expanding its branch network in Ireland and acquiring the building society's large customer deposit base.
So far only Iceland's Islandsbanki, with a war chest of 400m, has declared itself a suitor, although at least three institutions are said to have opened talks with Irish Nationwide regarding a sale.
IS D4 DUNNE FOR?
Good to see the well known anticapitalist hordes of Ballsbridge residents uniting to bring down developer Sean Dunne's plans for a door wedge-shaped 132-metre high tower in the heart of leafy south Dublin.
Sixteen residents groups have reportedly pooled their resources to fight the proposed development of the Jurys and Berkley Court hotel sites Dunne lashed out 54m an acre for, and with the combined legal talents of the barrister belt ranged against Dunne there's no doubt the planning process could be a lengthy one.
Dunne's bankers no doubt loose sleep over the loans they lashed out to Lord Dunne of Ballsbridge to buy the land for his 536 apartment, hotel and mall complex. At least residents delaying the project will rack up the old interest charges.
Phew.
TO BEBO OR NOT TO BEBO?
In the rapidly changing high-tech offices of today it's good to know it's the age old problems that still really irritate us. Last week we learned it's talkative colleagues that is the biggest distraction at work according to a study by recruiters at Roberts Walters, not the insidious distraction of social networking phenomenon Facebook which is exercising several major employers.
The Trades Union Congress in Britain last week urged employers to chill out and allow staff to talk to their buddies on Facebook, MySpace or Bebo, while the National Union of Students used Facebook to mount a successful campaign to force HSBC bank to freeze interest charging on graduate overdraughts.
A Sophos poll last week found 50% of employers had banned Facebook, and LloydsTSB, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs recently led the charge against this 'procrastinator's paradise'. This might explain what all the young financial whiz kids were up to at work all summer while the sub-prime market imploded as their senior partners sipped G&Ts on their yachts perhaps?
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