5.30pm Markets Update
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 17:37Most European shares closed higher this evening, with oils gaining as crude rose to more than $80 a barrel, and as US companies continued to beat forecasts for third-quarter earnings.
London's FTSE gained 14 points (0.3%) to end at 5,258 this evening, while the Paris CAC inched two points higher to 3,873 and the Frankfurt DAX added 22 points (0.4%) to close at 5,833.
But Dublin's ISEQ index closed 26 points lower at 3,253 - down 0.8% - with the banking stocks mixed. AIB lost over 1% to close at €2.67, while Bank of Ireland slipped over 2% to €2.72. But Irish Life and Permanent added 2% to end at €5.75. Shares in Elan dropped 2% to €4.04 despite the pharmaceutical firm reporting a net profit of $52.3m for the third quarter of this year.
Wall Street resumed its rally as the market focused on earnings from the banking sector that were better than expected, shaking off a disappointing quarterly report from Boeing. The Dow Jones had gained 34 points (0.3%) to stand at 10,075 this evening, while the Nasdaq climbed 10 points (0.46%) to 2,174.
Earlier, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index ended marginally lower at 10,333 before the release of key economic data later in the week.
