With great debate about how much further the financial stocks can rise, Davy Stockbrokers has tipped one of the leading industrials

CRH as having the potential to deliver good gains for investors this year. The brokers predict that group profits will grow strongly again in 1998, insisting that even its own optimistic forecast may prove to be on the cautious side.

The brokers also share the view of a number of market analysts that Smurfit is set to make a good recovery.

Davy believes the medium-term outlook for the containerboard industry now looks to be "exceptionally favourable" and predicts the shares will rise on improving sentiment. It forecasts that Smurfit could rise from current levels of around 213p to 300p by year-end.