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ISEQ rebounds in morning trading

Thursday, October 25 12:59:42

Irish top shares rebounded in line with European markets this morning as the Troika said the country is in compliance with its bailout programme targets.

By 12:45, the ISEQ was up 30.65 points to 3,242.06.

Ireland has today successfully concluded the eighth review mission of our EU-IMF Programme, minister for Finance, Michael Noonan said today. However, he said that there are some tough decisions to be made before Ireland can exit the bailout next year and that the negotiations on our legacy banking debts are ongoing with the Troika to reduce this burden. He said that the review mission, which started on October 16th, has involved a detailed assessment of the fiscal position, the macroeconomic outlook, progress on the restructuring of the financial sector and broader structural reforms in line with the commitments set out for the third quarter of 2012.

However, Noonan's efforts to hold the EU to its promise to help us out with crippling legacy bank debt was dealt another blow after the Bundesbank's Andreas Dombret said today that Europe's planned banking union will not help countries with past banking problems.

Shares in Smurfit Kappa rose 20c to E8.45 after it US peer Owens Illinois last night reported better-than-expected Q3 results. The group posted Q3 sales of $1.747bn versus the consensus forecast of $1.746bn. Q3 EPS was 69c versus the street's estimate of 67c. The results were driven by a combined price and product mix which was up more than 4pc in the quarter. Management commented that the group's performance was boosted by "higher demand in the Americas and cost reductions across the company". As expected, the group's actions to balance European production with lower demand resulted in lower operating profit. The outlook for Europe remains weak with further cost actions planned to mitigate volume declines. The result surprised positively and the stock rose 8pc after-hours.

Bwin.party announced this morning that it has a signed a B2B deal with social games provider Zynga for the provision of real money poker and casino services in the UK. Zynga currently provides social games to approximately 311m active users globally. Shares in Paddy Power climbed 28c to E57.33.