European shares finish volatile week on high
European shares rose for a second straight week, buoyed by robust US employment figures and diminishing concerns over trade friction that had previously rattled investor confidence.
The week has been a volatile one for global markets as investors grappled with ever-changing global trade dynamics. US president Donald Trump doubled tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, though the UK received an exemption.
But markets are also monitoring whether the public spat between Mr Trump and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk could spill over into broader markets.
Dublin
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The Irish Overall Index of shares ended the week slightly higher, adding 0.14 per cent to finish at 11,622. That followed a fresh all-time high reached on Thursday, following the news that the European Central Bank was 'getting to the end' of a rates cycle which has seen eight consecutive cuts.
But shares were mixed across the board. While AIB gained over its opening price on Friday, adding 0.2 per cent, Bank of Ireland gave up some of its gains, falling half a per cent. Insurer FBD was flat on the day.
It was a similar story for insulation specialist Kingspan, which shed 1 per cent, closing the week at €75.55. The company's shares gave up some of the gains made on Thursday after it announced it would increase its planned investment in the US roofing business to $1 billion over the next five years.
Food group Glanbia was 1.1 per cent higher at the close of the session, finishing at €12.64, while Kerry Group was almost 1 per cent lower.
In leisure and travel stocks, hotel group Dalata was 1 per cent lower, while Ryanair added 1.76 per cent to end the week at €24.28.
London
The blue-chip FTSE 100 gained 0.3 per cent, while the more domestically-oriented FTSE 250 ended 0.4 per cent higher. Both indexes clocked firm weekly gains.
On the day, heavyweight banks were among the top gainers, with Standard Chartered up 2.9 per cent, HSBC up 1 per cent and Barclays climbing 1.9 per cent.
Precious metal miners, the best performing FTSE 350 sector this week, lagged on Friday, clocking a 1.8 per cent decline.
Aerospace and defence shares – which jumped earlier this week after Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged the largest sustained increase in British defence spending since the end of the Cold War – gave some of those gains back, to fall 0.8 per cent.
Europe
The pan-European Stoxx 600 rose 0.3 per cent on Friday, and logged a 0.6 per cent gain for the week.
Market sentiment drew support from the United States' better-than-expected jobs report and signs of easing in the US-China trade relationship.
Still, the market was also reminded this week of protectionist fervour. The automotive sector, particularly exposed to tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, bore the brunt, shedding 1.8 per cent over the week.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz indicated he would pursue a deal for duty-free US car imports into Europe in exchange for equivalent tariff waivers on European exports to the United States.
Other bourses such as Germany's DAX and France's also recorded a second straight week of gains, while and Spain's IBEX logged its eight consecutive week of advances – its longest in nearly four months.
On Friday, the financial sector emerged as the standout performer, propelled by UBS, which rose 3.8 per cent after Swiss authorities proposed more stringent rules that could require an additional $26 billion in core capital reserves for the banking giant.
New York
Wall Street rebounded on Friday and US Treasury yields jumped as a generally upbeat employment report and a bounce-back in Tesla shares helped put the indexes on track for weekly advances.
All three major US stock indexes surged from the starting gate with robust gains, while bitcoin jumped and crude prices touched their highest level since late April.
Tesla stock was last up 5.9 per cent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 485.78 points, or 1.15 per cent, to 42,805.52, the S&P 500 rose 66.69 points, or 1.12 per cent, to 6,005.88 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 252.22 points, or 1.31 per cent, to 19,550.67. – Additional reporting: Reuters
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Irish Times
32 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Oireachtas should slam down gavel on judges' planned 16.7% injury awards hike
The introduction in April 2021 of judicial guidelines on personal injury awards had an immediate and sharp effect – with the median value of compensation awarded by the Injuries Resolution Board (IRB) falling 46 per cent to €10,000 in the eight months that followed. The guidelines were also aimed at creating more consistency in awards, regardless of whether they were resolved directly with an insurer, the IRB, or through the courts. The problem is, there is no comprehensive data available from the courts on awards – not helped by a dearth of written judgments at District and Circuit Court levels – for anyone to make such an assessment. Either way, an all-too-high number of claimants – encouraged, no doubt, by their lawyers – continue to think they can fare better going down the legal route than settling through the IRB. Figures published by the board last month show that while the motor crash claimants consenting to being assessed by the IRB in the first instance rose from 62 per cent to 78 per cent between 2020 and last year, the acceptance rate of awards from the board fell marginally, to 47 per cent. [ Judges expected to support draft guidelines for 16.7% rise in personal injuries awards Opens in new window ] The board of the judicial council, required by law to review the guidelines every three years, proposed in December that payouts increase by 16.7 per cent. This was adopted by the council of the State's judges in late January and passed over to the Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan, who must put the amendments before Houses of the Oireachtas for approval. READ MORE There is an expectation that the minister will bring the proposal before the Oireachtas before the summer recess. The planned blanket hike has been met with resistance from insurers and business lobby groups, who know that the increase will be passed directly on to consumers and companies. Motorists, who had seen insurance premiums fall by 25 per cent between 2017 and 2022, have already stomached rate increases in more recent years as car parts and labour inflation have driven up damage costs. The guidelines review was a crude exercise, with the committee of judges that carried it out applying the general Irish inflation rate to existing awards guidelines. The judicial council even said at the time that the committee 'did not find it possible to carry out any meaningful analysis of the quantum of court awards given under the guidelines that might inform this review'. Nor does there appear to have been any regard given to what's going on elsewhere. The going rate under the existing guidelines for minor neck injuries, where recovery is made within six months, is up to €3,000, 5½ times higher than that in the UK – where awards are among the highest in Europe. [ Is going to court worth it for personal injuries claimants? A lawyer and insurer go head to head on the issue Opens in new window ] 'The large disparity is before the 16.7 per cent increase proposed by the judicial council, which, if introduced, will make the gap even larger,' Aviva Insurance Ireland said in submission last month to the Department of Finance, which is weighing further insurance reforms. 'Comparing Aviva's claims in the UK and Ireland, attritional claims like whiplash represent 30 per cent of the cost of motor insurance premium in Ireland compared to 10 per cent of premium in the UK in 2024 and lower still in Europe.' TDs and senators should reject the planned amendments and push it back to the judiciary to go back to the drawing board. 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Agriland
14 hours ago
- Agriland
How farmers are going green with sustainability-linked loans
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Irish Times
15 hours ago
- Irish Times
The Irish economy grew by 22% over the past year. Yes, you read that right
Ireland's economic data was always going to be a bit special at the start of this year. But Thursday's figures were mind-bending. It is impossible to overstate the extent to which we now stand out in international comparisons. And this is not just a curiosity – it matters. The economy, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) , was 22 per cent larger in the first quarter of 2025 than one year earlier, according to the latest estimates from the Central Statistics Office . Think about it. The figures suggest that for every €1 of activity last year, there was €1.22 in 2025. Even comparing GDP in the first quarter of this year with the last quarter of 2024, there is a rise of close to 10 per cent – this is roughly the extent of growth across the euro zone over the past decade. Of course this bonkers data is not real, in the sense that it does not reflect what is happening in the underlying economy in which we all live. How could it? As has been long discussed the headline economic data is entirely distorted by the activities and tax planning of a small number of very big US tech and pharma companies. From time to time, this has created huge distortions in the figures. A decade ago, top US economist Paul Krugman famously described a 26 per cent GDP growth rate reported for the Irish economy (later revised up to over 30 per cent) as 'leprechaun' economics . At the time the figures were distorted by massive tax-driven investments by the companies concerned, including Apple, essentially a manoeuvre by the companies involved to try to keep their tax bills down as international rules changed. READ MORE Now, as one observer put it, we are seeing another 'Krugman' moment. This time the reasons are different. Big pharma companies have been rushing product over to the US to try to get drugs and key ingredients into the market before Donald Trump announces tariffs on the sector. This has led to a surge in exports, feeding into the GDP data. Many of these are manufactured here – and some are made elsewhere but organised by Irish subsidiaries and so also show up in our figures. And so we see a massive surge in Irish GDP in the first quarter of this year. A big – temporary – decline in pharma exports in GDP will follow at some stage, as the firms involved must now have massive stocks jammed into every free warehouse in the US. Much will depend on how the tariffs story plays out. [ Welcome (back) to the era of Leprechaun economics Opens in new window ] Whether Krugman renews his leprechaun offensive or not, let's not pretend this won't be noticed. Ireland's GDP data is not some irrelevance in a quirky economic corner. The amounts of money being moved through Ireland are now enormous. Daniel Kral, chief economist at Oxford Economics , calculates that Ireland – which accounts for 4 per cent of the euro zone economy – accounted for half its total growth over the past year. Analysts have taken to looking at the figures 'excluding Ireland'. How do we pull back from all of this to judge the underlying health of the economy? Total demand in the domestic economy – adjusted by the CSO to remove the multinational factors - rose just 1 per cent over the year. But we need to look under the surface here, too. Consumer spending, a good measure of how we feel, was up by a decent 2.5 per cent. But the overall figure was dragged down by a fall in business investment, presumably reflecting the international uncertainty. So households continued to spend in the first part of the year, but businesses are taking a wait-and-see approach to big capital spending. This is likely to be reflected in the jobs market as the year goes on – and here AI is also changing the game in many sectors. Consumers may get more cautious too. Uncertainty is starting to slow the economy and this is a trend we need to watch as the year goes on. The piece of data that seemed a bit out of line this week was a 30 per cent fall in corporation tax in May compared with the same month last year. This was affected by the comparison with a strong May last year – which the Department of Finance suggests was boosted by once-off factors. Two of our biggest taxpayers, Pfizer and Microsoft – pay significant amounts of tax that month. But the key early indicator for most of the big companies is June – and what happens here will give a good pointer for the year as a whole. The figures do underline one point. It is our huge reliance on the opaque affairs of four or five massive companies – and our exposure to the sectors they operate in, their own performance and complex decisions on how their tax structures are set up. Our latest bout of data exceptionalism again puts Ireland in the spotlight, when it would have been better to keep the head down. It underlines the outsize take Ireland is getting from pharma and tech activity in the EU – both contentious points in the White House. Notably, the US added Ireland to an economic watch list this week, based on the size of our trade surplus. We are very much on the radar in Washington. Our corporate tax take and manufacturing base are looked on enviously not only from the US , but from elsewhere in Europe. [ 'No long-term commitments to anything' – Ireland's economy is experiencing a silent slowdown Opens in new window ] The advance shipping of products again focuses attention on the scale of activity and tax planning in Ireland by big pharma companies. And this causes a rollercoaster of cyclical activity. But what really counts is longer-term, structural issues. Will these pharma giants decide over time – and it would take years – to relocate some of their production to the US? Will their profits and thus tax payments here be hit by Trump's policies? Or will they – or some of the tech giants – alter their corporate structures so that they pay significantly less tax here? It comes down to whether Trump's policies change the way the economic and corporate world operates fundamentally, a fair bit or not much at all. As Ireland benefits from the current system so much, the more it changes, the more risks there are for us. The coming months will tell a lot.
