ISEQ dips slightly in morning trading
The Irish stock Exchange has had a modest fall this morning as financial giants FBD Holdings and Irish Life and Permanent reported reported profit decreases today.
The ISEQ stood at 4,331.25 after a 16.02 point fall by 10.45 am this morning.
The biggest faller of the morning was FBD Holdings which saw their share price slump 65c to €14.55 after reporting a fall of nearly €25m in operating profits in the six months up to June 30, 2008, as compared to the same period last year. The group's operating profit in the period came to €40.7m, profits in the same period of 2007 were €65.1m.
Irish Life and Permanent also reported a drop in profits to €300m for the first half of 2008 up to June 30, down 7% on H1 2007 profit of €321m. However, this was still seen as "robust" and was reflected in their 44c share price increase to €5.87.
The other banks were mixed with AIB down 12c to €8.01 and Anglo Irish Bank up eight cents to €5.34. Bank of Ireland slipped seven cents to €5.10.
In the construction sector, Kingspan climbed 26c to €7.25 after reporting pre-tax profits of €83.9m in the first half of this year. Despite showing a fall of €108.1m for the same period in 2007, the results were again described as "robust". Rival CRH went down 11c to €16.51.
Elsewhere, Independent News and Media had a slight drop of three cents to €1.39 after announcing a 3% rise in group revenue to €780.4m for the six months ended June 30, 2008.
