Spanish construction sector down on week

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 dropped 1.1 percent to 1,472.65 during the week as trade was light as the Christmas holiday approached.

Among the losers on the week was the Spanish construction sector. Sacyr-Vallehermoso, which dropped 7.4 percent to €46 after it said it has taken a bank loan of €5.175 billion to pay for its purchase of 20 percent of oil company Repsol. JP Morgan began coverage of the Spanish construction company with a rating of “underweight” and a target share price of €36. Meanwhile, Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas dropped 7.6 percent to €76.10 when Banesto dropped its recommendation on FCC from “overweight” to “neutral”.

On the other hand, after seeing tough times due to delays in the construction of the Airbus A380, EADS added 5.7 percent during the week to €25.77 after it received new orders from Qantas and from Singapore Airlines.

In the oil sector, Norsk Hydro had a very good week, adding 20.3 percent to NKr188 after it announced that it will merge its oil and gas production business with Statoil. It will keep its aluminium operations separate. Statoil, however, dropped 5.2 percent to NKr164 despite positive reaction to the deal from most brokers when Citigroup downgraded its recommendation from “buy” to “hold”.

Swiss watch makers saw gains on exports that were up 13 percent in November compared to last year at the same time. Swatch was up 3 percent to SFr54.15, while Richemont added 4.1 percent to SFr70.50.

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