Monday was a muted day on the Irish market; however, the Iseq outperformed its European peers, rising 0.43 per cent across the day. Markets were closed in the US due to the Labor Day holiday. Traders are now looking towards September, a month that has traditionally been treacherous for stock markets.
DUBLIN
Overall the Iseq was up 0.43 per cent on Monday as it outperformed European peers. AIB rose 1.65 per cent to finish €5.53 a share. It follows a €500 million share buyback deal, where AIB will buy back Government shares, reducing its stake in the company about 22 per cent. Bank of Ireland dipped marginally by 0.34 per cent, closing at €10.33 a share.
Permanent TSB climbed 5 per cent on Monday to finish at €1.68, as it recovered some of the losses from last week.
Kingspan was up 2.16 per cent, finishing at €80.40, in advance of a final report on the fire at Grenfell Tower in London in June 2017, which is due to be published this Wednesday. Ryanair fell 1.3 per cent to €15.73 while Dalata hotels fell slightly by 0.91 per cent to €4.36.
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LONDON
The UK’s main stock index closed lower on Monday, weakened by a sell-off in aerospace, defence and personal goods shares, while real estate shares surged on a bid for property portal Rightmove, capping losses.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index fell by 0.2 per cent, after hitting a three-month high on Friday and logging its third straight weekly rise.
The aerospace and defence index tumbled 4.1 per cent overall, the biggest one-day fall in nearly a year and a half, weighed down by a 6.5 per cent drop in aerospace engineer Rolls-Royce.
Europe’s aerospace and defence index was also down 2.4 per cent, marking its biggest drop in a month.
The personal goods index slipped 1.9 per cent after BofA Global Research slashed its price target on sectoral giants. Luxury retailer Burberry fell 0.7 per cent while watch retailer Watches of Switzerland Group lost 4.8 per cent following the cut.
By contrast, real estate advanced 2.6 per cent as the top sectoral performer owing to a 27.4 per cent jump in shares of Britain’s largest property portal Rightmove.
The Bank of England is expected to keep interest rates on hold this month before cutting them in November for only the second time since 2020.
EUROPE
Europe’s Stoxx 600 index fell 0.21 per cent, after hitting a record high on Friday. Germany’s DAX was down 0.1 per cent.
Wins for the populist parties in German state elections added a fresh layer of political uncertainty in European markets.
“European equities have opened on a weaker footing owing to weaker economic data from China,” said Aneeka Gupta, equity strategist at WisdomTree. “The industrials and consumer discretionary sector led the declines.”
US
Futures for the US S&P 500 index were down 0.1 per cent, while those for the tech-laden Nasdaq 100 were flat. US stock markets were closed for Labor Day on Monday and treasuries were untraded.
The big event of the week will be the US non-farm payrolls report on Friday, which is expected to show the economy added 165,000 jobs in August, up from 114,000 in July.
Traders currently think a September Federal Reserve rate cut is nailed on and see a 33 per cent chance that it could be an outsize 50-basis-point reduction, but that could shift on Friday.
The weak July jobs report helped spark a sell-off in global stocks at the start of August, although the S&P 500 has since rebounded to sit 0.4 per cent off a record high.
– Additional reporting: Reuters
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