Iseq gains before Easter holiday

Decent gains for exploration company Dragon Oil and building materials giant CRH lifted the Iseq index by 0.7 per cent today ahead of the four-day Easter holiday.

Dragon Oil surged 4.2 per cent to €6.37 after the company said it plans to increase production as much as 20 per cent this year - more than previously forecast - on new pipeline infrastructure.

CRH, meanwhile, rallied 3.7 per cent to €16.42, a gain of 59 cent, after Goldman Sachs added the group to its "conviction buy" list and analysts at JPMorgan Chase began its coverage of the company with an "overweight" recommendation.

Paddy Power rose 79 cent to €32.30, a rise of 2.5 per cent, on a day in which fellow bookmaker William Hill performed well on the London market after it announced a 21 per cent rise in first-quarter profit, led by online sports betting.

Advances in crude oil prices took the wind out of the airline stocks, with Ryanair declining 1.3 per cent to€3.33 and Aer Lingus tumbling 2.38 per cent to 82 cent.

The biggest plunger, however, was pharmaceutical group Elan, which released a fresh safety update on its drug Tysabri. It indicated that nine new cases of the brain disease PML were confirmed in Tysabri patients in March, bringing the total to 111, with 22 fatalities.

The incidence of PML case reports has increased in 2011 compared to previous years, analysts at Davy noted. It added that this probably reflected the fact that a larger proportion of Tysabri patients are now on the treatment for two years or more.

Elan's stock finished the day down 7.5 per cent at €5.29, losing 43 cent compared to the previous session's closing price.

Paper and packaging group Smurfit Kappa fell 6 cent to €9.29 a day after its peer Stora Enso published an earnings update indicating a positive outlook for industrial packaging demand.

Finally, Origin Enterprises fell 1.3 per cent to €3.80, despite a healthy quarterly update from animal nutrition and fishfeed company Nutreco.