AFTER a weak opening, the Dublin market perked up in afternoon trade with most attention on the industrials. Dealers said, how ever, that turnover was relatively light and the market seems to be settling into a period of consolidation.
NCB, however, is positive about the rest of the year and has raised its end of 1996 forecast for the ISEQ from 2500 to 2650.
CRH has given an "overweight" recommendation to CRH, Smurfit and Fyffes, although AIB and Kerry have been given an "underweight" recommendation.
Industrial shares were in demand yesterday with CRH 2p better on 585p while Smurfit was also 2p higher despite confirmation that director Mr Dermot Smurfit has been a recent seller of 500,000 shares at 165p. Bank of Ireland continued in demand and dealt up 3p to 460p while AIB was 3p lower on 332p, narrowing AIB's market value lead over Bank of Ireland to just £28 million.
Elsewhere, Kerry gained 5p to 580p despite the NCB weight" tag, Adare was at 5271/2p after the Prontaprint acquisition, while Irish was 2p lower despite reports that its latest five year syndicated has been heavily of and is being £150 million. Heiton was stronger on 93p, Fitzwilton 1p to 54p, Grafton was 10p on 570p while Greencore gained 2p to 312p.
Trading on the gilt market marked by continued Irish gilts tracked German upwards. Turnover was less dramatic than of late, but the remains exceptionally
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)