Stocks climbed on Monday as investors renewed bets on early interest rate cuts following figures showing that US shoppers may be starting to put the breaks on their spending.
DUBLIN
The Iseq Overall Index rose 1 per cent to 10,037.19 on Monday.
Ryanair Holdings climbed 3.75 per cent to €18.15 in bank holiday trading. European airlines were popular with investors following the weekend when the summer traditionally gets going in earnest.
Also among the Irish market’s leading stocks, packaging giant Smurfit Kappa advanced 2 per cent to €45.60. Insulation specialist Kingspan edged 0.68 per cent ahead to €88.80. Housebuilder Cairn Homes added 2 per cent to €1.71. Dalata Hotel Group closed 1.43 per cent up at €4.27.
Lenders did not do so well. Bank of Ireland slipped 1.38 per cent to €10.37, AIB dipped 0.1 per cent to €5.215.
LONDON
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 slipped on Monday, weighed down by pharmaceutical and energy stocks, while investor optimism around a highly anticipated interest rate cut by the European Central Bank this week contained declines.
Drugmaker GSK sank 9.5 per cent to 1,598 pence, leaving it at the bottom of the FTSE 100, after a court in Delaware, US, allowed more than 70,000 lawsuits to proceed over the group’s discontinued heartburn drug Zantac.
JD Sports jumped 5.1 per cent to 133.95p, topping the FTSE 100, reversing Friday’s 4.7 per cent slump in the clothing chain’s shares.
St James’s Place enjoyed a good day after analysts at JP Morgan upgraded the financial adviser to overweight from neutral. The stock closed 4 per cent ahead at 522.5p but had gained as much as 5.6 per cent in early trade.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund gained 1 per cent in early trade after Blackstone sweetened its offer for the music rights investor by a cent to $1.31 from $1.30 as part of a revised bid. The shares closed 0.4 per cent up at 101p.
Low-cost airline and Ryanair rival EasyJet added 3.35 per cent to 475.4p. Aer Lingus and British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines’ Group rose 2.22 per cent to 175.2p.
EUROPE
The Stoxx 600 index climbed 0.33 per cent as investors speculated whether the European Central Bank would trim interest rates on Thursday, although some observers cautioned that it could stall cuts.
Avanza Bank climbed 1.35 per cent to 277.7 Swedish kroner after analysts at Barclays upgraded the Stockholm-listed online lender. The move helped boost European banks, which collectively gained 1.2 per cent.
Lufthansa could only manage to inch 0.45 per cent ahead to €6.45 on what was otherwise a good day for airlines. Reports speculated that the German carrier faced an uphill battle with regulators over its bid for a stake in Italy’s Ita.
European natural gas prices rose more than 8 per cent to their highest this year at over €37 a megawatt hour as an outage in Europe’s biggest supplier Norway sent exports tumbling.
US
GameStop soared 24.1 per cent by 6pm Irish time after a weekend Reddit post from stocks influencer Keith Gill, also known as “Roaring Kitty”, showed a $116 million (€106.6m) bet on the gaming retailer.
AI leader Nvidia rose 3.3 per cent on remarks from chief executive Jensen Huang that the company’s next-generation chips would be rolled out in 2026.
Shares of megacaps including Apple and Meta gained between 0.8 per cent and 2.1 per cent as yields on the benchmark US 10-year and five-year notes fell around 10 basis points each.
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