5 Irish Stocks To Buy For St. Patrick's Day

For many people, St. Patrick’s Day means a corned beef and cabbage dinner, a pint of Guinness and watching “The Quiet Man” for the 100th time.

For investors seeking to add a breath of fresh Eire in their portfolios might want to consider taking a second look at some major Irish companies trading on the U.S. exchanges.

Accenture Plc: ACN A Fortune Global 500 company, Dublin-headquartered Accenture generated $44.33 billion in 2020 revenues. With 506,000 employees spread across three continents, this professional services company has been on a shopping spree since 2019. Bloomberg reported Accenture acquired at least 65 companies in the past two years, including three — an Australian supply chain consultancy, a Brazilian robotics firm and a U.K. leadership development business — that were announced March 1.

There seems to be more than the luck of the Irish going on here: Accenture’s NYSE shares soared by 42% over the past 12 months, resulting in a market value of $171.6 billion.

Accenture's stock last closed at $263.52, down 1%.

AerCap Holdings N.V.: AER One of the aviation industry’s biggest stories last week was the acquisition by Ireland’s AerCap of GE Capital Aviation Services, a General Electric Company GE business, in a transaction involving $24 billion of cash, $1 billion of AerCap notes and/or cash and 1.1 billion newly issued AerCap shares.

AerCap is an aircraft leasing company serving roughly 200 customers in approximately 80 countries, while GE's aviation services business is an aviation lessor and financier that owns, services or has on order approximately 1,700 aircraft. The newly combined corporate entity will boast more than 2,000 owned and managed aircraft, over 900 owned and managed engines, over 300 owned helicopters and approximately 300 customers around the world.

AerCap closed at $59.77, down 2.67%.

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Bank of Ireland Group plc: BKRIF Investors in the over-the-counter market may want to consider Bank of Ireland, the oldest continuously operating bank in Ireland — it first opened its doors on June 25, 1783.

While the COVID-19 pandemic challenged the bank, it surprised many analysts in Ireland by turning a profit during the second half of 2020. According to the Irish Times, its underlying 2020 pre-tax loss of $445 million was stronger than the $715 million consensus view among analysts.

CEO Francesca McDonagh used the bank’s most recent earnings call to highlight the bank’s ability to adapt to changing times with imagination. While the rising level of digital banking forced the bank to close about one-third of its branch network, a new partnership with the Irish postal service, An Post, will enable all of its customers to have access to banking services in more than 1,000 Irish post offices.

Bank of Ireland Group closed at $4.86, down 0.21%.

Ryanair Holdings plc: RYAAY Ireland’s low-cost airline joined its peers in experiencing a deeply challenging 12-month pandemic period, with an 83% year-over-year decline in passenger volume. But also in keeping with its peers in the airline industry, the company is aiming for a vibrant post-pandemic rebound.

Ryanair is expecting 1,809 routes this summer across 221 airports and 37 countries, according to the aviation trade journal Simple Flying, which would represent a 112% year-over-year increase from the summer of 2020 and a relatively mild 29% decline from the pre-pandemic of summer 2019.

Ryanair closed at $115.06, up 0.85%.

Trinity Biotech plc: TRIB Trinity Biotech develops, acquires, manufactures and markets diagnostic systems, including both reagents and instrumentation, for the point-of-care (POC) and clinical laboratory segments of the global diagnostic market. The company’s portfolio includes diagnostic tests and instrumentation for detecting infectious diseases, as well as products for identifying and monitoring patients with diabetes.

The POC market sales have been impacted over the last 12 months due to the medical field’s pivot to mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic, with Trinity also acknowledging a decline in sales of diabetes-related instruments and autoimmunity and HIV testing products. That said, the company’s COVID-focused products helped generate $32 million in third-quarter 2020 revenue, a 30% year-over-year growth.

“Revenues were very strong this quarter, particularly our Clinical Laboratory revenues which grew by 45%,” said CEO Ronan O’Caoimh. “This was driven by strong demand for our COVID-19 related products which includes our Viral Transport Media product, ELISA antibody test, monoclonal antibodies sold by (our life science supply business) Fitzgerald as well as our rapid respiratory products, demand for which have increased during the pandemic.”

Trinity closed at $4.43, down 4.73%.

And as they say in Ireland, "Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig ort!"

(Photo by Father Lawrence Lew, O.P. /Flickr Creative Commons.)