Heavy buying of Smurfit was the main feature of the Irish market yesterday with the share finally showing signs of breaking out of its narrow trading range.
More than nine million Smurfit shares dealt in Dublin and another 3.5 million in London with speculation that US institutions were behind the buying. Smurfit might be out of favour with domestic institutions, but US institutions have been recent active buyers, the most recent big deals involving Franklin Templeton which bought 10 million shares a month ago. There was speculation that Franklin may have been involved in yesterday's buying.
Otherwise the action was muted with leading financials and industrials little changed in light turnover. There was unusually large dealing in software group Datalex where 1.5 million shares traded as the shares fell as low as #2.70 before closing unchanged on #3.00. Institutional investors in the Datalex IPO were released from a lock-up this week and this may explain the unusually high turnover.
Parthus staged a strong recovery in London and closed 13p higher on 102p sterling with talk in the market that first-quarter results next week may offer good news for investors who have seen their Parthus shares collapse in recent months. Baltimore drifted 1p easier on 72p sterling as the market braces itself for the release of another 11.1 million shares from lock-up next Wednesday.
Even though Vodafone lost 8p to 221p sterling yesterday, Eircom managed to hold on to its recent gains and closed unchanged on #2.65. CRH rebounded from Thursday's selling and was up 55 cents at the close on #18.15.
