Yet another tedious day on the Dublin market

Ignore the big jump by Elan and otherwise it was yet another tedious day on the Dublin market with prices generally lower across the board. The index might have gained almost 1 per cent, but that was all down to Elan's dominance of the ISEQ as most other large capitalisation stocks - particularly banks - were weaker.

The vast bulk of Elan trading takes place on the New York Stock Exchange - less than 14,000 shares traded in Dublin yesterday where the share jumped €4 (£3.15) to €53. In New York, bullish broker comment and expectations of a significant announcement drove the share ahead over $2 (€2.10) by midday to $52 with over three million shares trading. The daily average in New York for Elan is 1.7 million shares, so yesterday's early session saw heavy turnover.

The only leader to gain yesterday was CRH which edged ahead three cents to €19. Bank shares were lower with AIB giving up Friday's gains to close down 13 cents on €9.25, Bank of Ireland was unchanged on €6.78 while Irish Life lost 17 cents to €8.33. Anglo Irish dropped five cents to €2.20 in turnover of over one million shares.

Second-liners were mixed. IAWS jumped 35 cents to €6.65 but Fyffes fell once again and was three cents lower on €1.05 - an awful long way off the €3.96 high of a few short months ago. Jurys was up 16 cents ahead of full-year results today. There was little activity in technology shares on any of the markets. Baltimore and Parthus were both marginally weaker in London, Trintech gave up some of its recent gains on the Neuer Markt while Smartforce was the best of the Irish on Nasdaq, trading up $1 5/8 by midday to $48.