The commercial-real-estate loan market is generally less transparent than the market for home loans. Deals between bankers and property developers are one-offs, on terms unknown to all but a few insiders. The parties to any loan always claim it is prudent: a bank analyst has little choice but to take them at their word. But Ingram was sceptical of the Irish banks. He had read Morgan Kelly's newspaper articles and even paid Kelly a visit in his university office. To Ingram's eyes, there undoubtedly appeared to be a vast difference between what the Irish banks were saying and what was really happening. To get at it he ignored what they were saying and went looking for knowledgeable insiders in the commercial-property market. He interviewed them, as a journalist might. On March 13, 2008, six months before the Irish real-estate Ponzi scheme collapsed, Ingram published a report, in which he simply quoted verbatim what British market insiders had told him about various banks' lending to commercial real estate. The Irish banks were making far riskier loans in Ireland than they were in Britain, but even in Britain, the report revealed, they were the nuttiest lenders around: in that category, Anglo Irish, Bank of Ireland, and A.I.B. came, in that order, first, second, and third.

For a few hours the Merrill Lynch report was the hottest read in the London financial markets, until Merrill Lynch retracted it. Merrill had been a lead underwriter of Anglo Irish's bonds and the corporate broker to A.I.B.: they'd earned huge sums of money off the growth of Irish banking. Moments after Phil Ingram hit the Send button on his report, the Irish banks called their Merrill Lynch bankers and threatened to take their business elsewhere. The same executive from Anglo Irish who had called to scream at Morgan Kelly called a Merrill research analyst to scream some more. Ingram's superiors at Merrill Lynch hauled him into meetings with in-house lawyers, who toned down the report's pointed language and purged it of its damning quotes from market insiders, including its many references to Irish banks And from that moment everything Ingram wrote about Irish banks was edited, and bowdlerized by Merrill Lynch's lawyers. At the end of 2008, Merrill fired him. One of Ingram's colleagues, a fellow named Ed Allchin, was also made to apologize to Merrill's investment bankers individually for the trouble he'd caused them by suggesting there was still money to be made on shorting Irish banks.

Eoin Treacy's view Good institutional research can be compromised if the more influential marketing, sales or corporate finance teams fear that it will upset some of their clients. This is a pity and demonstrates the ineffectiveness of Chinese Walls. Nevertheless, by the time the above mentioned report was written, the damage had already been done to the Irish economy.

Individuals might be rational at times but crowds are often irrational and prone to extremes of emotion. All crowds share common characteristics.

Crowds think in absolutes. There is only good or bad, right or wrong, bullish or bearish. They allow no room for equivocation, so unless an investor is actively participating, they are on the outside. This helps to foster a "with us or against us" attitude.

Every crowd accepts contradiction. If we look at any major crash, there will always be some patently absurd belief which was accepted as fact until just before the collapse. In the Nasdaq bubble it was "earnings don't matter". In the credit boom was "everyone can hedge against default". For Treasuries, it was "prices always go up" or "we can fix a debt problem with more debt". Contradictions are defining characteristics of every major bull and bear market, so when belief in them deteriorates, it is often a signal that the market is turning.

Denial, aggression, surprise, panic, acceptance, depression and morbidity are all potential factors in how an individual deals with a loss. All of these emotional states are evident in the Irish market today. So what happens next?

This heavyweight 104-page report kindly forwarded by NCB Stockbrokers may be of interest. Here are two sections:

Irish profits now represent only 17% of overall operating profit of our sample for Irish publicly quoted companies. This compares to 36% in 2006.

And

A two tiered recovery will be the order of the day for the Irish economy in 2011 also. We look for GNP to contract by 0.7% in 2011 and GDP to grow by 0.2% on the back of the continued contribution from net exports, with domestic demand expected to remain weak and contract by 2.6% (Appendix 1). We expect employment to contract marginally in 2011 as a result of the weak domestic demand. The unemployment rate will be determined by the level of emigration and the profile of those emigrants, but the rate is likely to remain in much the same range as it has been for the last couple of months (13.0-13.6%). In short, the recovery in Ireland will continue to be driven by net exports, with domestic demand dragging and as such, will be best categorised as a jobless recovery.

Ireland's ability to cut wages may be leading to pain in the domestic part of the economy, but it is the best option for a small open economy like Ireland. It is this flexibility which is helping Ireland regain competiveness. The positive feedback loop between domestic demand and employment is unlikely to be meaningful until 2012, but in the meantime Ireland must rely on exports to drive the economy and employment. We highlight the reasons we believe consumption is likely to be weak - emigration, personal debt, rising tax burden, sluggish employment – in the coming years in a later section of this report.

The Irish Financials Index is a candidate for perpetual ranging, assuming it survives as a separate entity. The ISEQ Index was dominated by banks until mid 2008 but these have now disappeared as a significant weighting.

Companies such as CRH and Ryanair are leveraged to growth in the European and US economies and occupy 40% of the index. They are both recovery candidates but the slow growth environment of their main markets, may limit the pace of their advances.

Fullermoney has demonstrated a clear preference for investments offering leverage to the global economy over the last few years. The Irish food industry is one of only a small number of domestic sectors that offer access to this theme, Not surprisingly they are among some of the market's relative strength leaders.

Kerry Group is a global food ingredients company and hit a new all time high a year ago. It found support in the region of the 200-day MA last week, posting an upside weekly key reversal, and a sustained move below €23.50 would be required to question medium-term upside potential. Aryzta has sustained a progression of higher major reaction lows since March 2009 and also recently found support in the region of the MA. Glanbia has surged over the last two months and has becomes quite overextended. However, a clear downward dynamic would be required to check the advance and a sustained move below €3.40 would be required to question medium-term upside potential. Donegal Creamery has also performed well.