THE 50 plus bounce on Wall Street after IBM turned in better than expected results gave European markets a welcome boost and share prices in Dublin - which have been weak in recent days - regained some ground.
Stocks which lost the most ground over the past few days recorded the best gains yesterday, with CRH trading in size and gaining 8p to 572p while Smurfit was up 3p to 158p, although its volumes were much lower. Financial shares also did well with AIB - ahead of interim results next week - up 6p to 323p, while Bank of Ireland was 5p higher on 415p.
There was little activity in second line stocks, but Irish Life was 4p stronger on 227p as the prospects of a dispute involving its Irish sales staff receded. Some of the food shares were weaker with Greencore down 5p on 295p while IAWS lost 7p to 160p after its recent strong run. Norish was up 10p to 80p - the best performance among the second liners.
Gilt dealers spent most of the day mulling the Bundesbank's surprise decision to make no change to its repo rate. After falling in morning trade, they showed signs of a recovery in the afternoon session - pulled higher by a recovery on the German bond market. Irish gilts, as usual, underperformed the improvement in Germany.
At the close, five year gilts were yielding 6.83 per cent, three year gilts were on a yield of 7.46 per cent while the benchmark long gilt closed on a yield of 7.57 per cent.
The main focus today will be on the ESRI report on Ireland and the EMU, commissioned by the Department of Finance. This is due for release immediately after the formal close of the markets at 4.30 p.m. and will be closely scrutinised.
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