Paddy Worst performing Irish Shares 2008

Spread bettors have been diving into Irish shares since the beginning of 2008. Unfortunately the ISEQ Index has lost 66.31% of its value year to date. According to Paddy Power 2008′s worst performing shares, sneak preview released today (pdf), paddypowertrader’s spread bettors, trading on Irish shares like Ryanair, CRH, Elan, and the four major Irish banks have been briskly trading throughout 2008 despite the unstable conditions.

Analysts have attributed the huge losses on the ISEQ and the ongoing uncertainty to the banking sector, commodities markets and generally bearish market sentiment.

‘We have compiled a list of the worst performing shares in the top 25 Irish public companies over 2008. Topping the list, having lost 98.4% of its value year to date, is Anglo Irish Bank. Irish Continenta, at the bottom of the list, is the best performer of the year having only lost 14.92% of its value. It’s pretty depressing reading, with stalwarts like Ryanair down 34.56%, Kerry Group down 38.48% and Dragon Oil having lost 65.62%.

We wanted to compile a comprehensive list of performances of Irish Shares in 2008. The fact that almost all notable companies lost share value over the year was quite interesting but not unsurprising, considering the market meltdown this year.’ said Davin McAnaney, Commercial Manager of Paddy Power Trader.

Other Irish movers attracting attention on the paddypowertrader.com sneak preview of 2008 are Allied Irish Banks and Elan Corporation. Elan, have dropped 70.73% while AIB Bank is currently trading at 88.51% down year to date.

‘This is a developing market for paddypowertrader.com. We can see that trading on Irish equities is dominating our trading balance. However it is interesting to note that the top falling share prices are the four banks despite the ban on short selling financial shares still in place in Ireland,’ concluded McAnaney.

Paddy Power Trader launched in the summer of 2007 enabling clients to take advantage of the many benefits of financial spread betting, including being a tax-free alternative to trading shares and financial markets. The product continues to grow in popularity in the UK and Ireland, amongst not only financial industry professionals, but also amongst those with an interest in the stock market.

Tags: CRH, Elan, Ryanair, spread betting

This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 11:16 pm and is filed under Public Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.