RENT CONTINUE TO STABILISE - If your accommodation is costing you €830 a month then that is bang on the national average, according to DAFT's rental review for last year. If you are paying that in Dublin you are probably getting a good deal, but if you are paying that outside of Dublin then maybe a chat with your landlord is a good idea.
Ronan Lyons, economist at property website Daft.ie, says that rents have stabilised over the country of 2010 with prices down on average by 0.6% in the year. This compares to falls of about 15% in 2009. He says that underlying demand for accommodation is there as first-time buyers are less enthusiastic about taking the plunge to buy their first home. He says a pattern existed in the past where people rented their first home when they went to college or started to work, stayed there until their late 20s or early 30s and then bought their first home. However, that pattern has stalled in recent years due to the problems in the property market. He says that in the coming months there will be a big distinction between city and rural rental markets as the overhang of properties in the areas outside the major cities will pull rents lower.
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EGYPT'S FINANCIAL STATE HURT BY UNREST - The banks opened in Egypt yesterday - a sign perhaps that the economy there needs to stop hurting. As well as the tourism industry suffering, the civil unrest has damaged investment in the country.
The head of research at Charles Stanley in London, Jeremy Batstone, says that the silent crisis of the unrest is a financial one. He says the Egyptian pound has been weakened considerably and the Egyptian Central Bank has poured $815m into the financial system to cope with the outflows of deposits. He says the country's failure to get a bond auction off last week was also a financial blow. Mr Batstone said that the French banks could see the biggest hit from the unrest in Egypt due to France's long historical links with north Africa. German, US and UK banks could also be exposed, he adds.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Aer Lingus said flight cancellations in the month of January arising from the the rosters' dispute with IMPACT cabin crew meant some 22,000 passengers who had booked did not get to travel with the airline. There was some element of weather disruption in relation to long haul in that figure. That number amounts to 4% of the total who has booked with Aer Lingus to fly during the month. The short haul load factor - or percentage of seats filled - was just under 63%, which is down more than 15% on the previous year because of the industrial dispute with IMPACT and planned reductions in service.
*** Another internet company has made its founders very rich indeed - the US Internet provider AOL is to buy the Huffington Post news website for $315m, the vast majority of it in cash. The Huffington Post was only set up in 2005 by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer and Jonah Peretti and is privately owned. The site has nearly 25 million monthly visitors.
*** On the currency markets, the euro is worth $1.3606 US cents and 84.18 pence sterling.
