Cautious brokers take stock of missed chances

Only last month, Peter Bacon's report pointed to the need for the Irish Stock Exchange to make itself more attractive for Irish companies in the technology sector. At the time, stock exchange chief executive Tom Healy promised developments to achieve precisely that in the coming months.

The scale of the challenge, though, was thrown into clearer perspective this week. Dublin-based Iona Technologies announced a landmark link-up with Compaq Computers. Though the deal was done well within the opening hours of the Dublin exchange, it didn't trouble brokers over here, even though the shares leapt 15 per cent on the Nasdaq exchange before settling for an 11 per cent gain on the day.

Now, I know Iona does most of its trade on the Nasdaq and that there is no provision for brokers in Dublin to trade on their own behalf in equities, but you would have thought some of them might have clients interested in the hottest Irish technology story of the day and one of the top technology stories worldwide.

As it happens, Iona has not traded in Dublin since January 7th, two weeks ago. Stories of Elan and Esat come to mind. How can Dublin brokers hope to maximise profits for clients in what is essentially a backwater market if they ignore the few issues available in the increasingly important, if volatile, technology, telecoms and pharmaceutical sectors?