Irish stocks stutter in August but rally continues on the ISEQ
News just released show that Irish stocks performed the worst among European peripheral markets in August. Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italian shares all rebounded on the belief that there will be further EU support for these countries economies.
The Irish Stock Exchange posted a very modest 1.86 per cent increase for the month while Italy, Spain and Greece increased by double-digit results. Portugal was just slightly lower.
The big jumps in the peripheral markets were still not enough to pull these countries out of negative for the year to date.
However, while Irish stocks had a low growth in August Ireland is in positive for the year compared to other countries. This is a continuation of an extraordinary rally dating back to July 2011.
With Irish benchmark bonds ending the month below six per cent it prompted The National Treasury to return to the capital markets with a new debt issue.
One interesting piece of news came from ECB president Mario Draghi on September 7th when he announced that the central bank was prepared to support sovereign bond prices by buying in the secondary market.
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