Leaders push market close to all-time high

There mightn't have been an awful lot of encouragement from overseas markets, but the Irish market's strong 2001 run continued yesterday with heavy volumes in most of the leaders pushing the market close to its all-time high.

Elan, which accounts for 25 per cent of the ISEQ, seldom trades in size in Dublin so it was notable that more than 185,000 worth €127 million changed hands on the home market. That represents a huge level of Dublin trading and the demand is apparently in response to the bullish comments at this week's a.g.m.

Smurfit also traded in size with 3.8 million shares crossing the market, although the shares edged just a cent higher to €2.11. Smurfit might have few friends among domestic institutions but some American institutions are still in love with the stock, notably Franklin which disclosed that it has bought almost 10 million shares on Thursday - almost 1 per cent of the total - to take its stake in Smurfit to 5 per cent. This means that American institutions have trebled their holding in Smurfit from 14 per cent to 44 per cent since 1995.

Eircom edged a cent ahead to €1.18 as corporate news is awaited. Turnover was sizeable at 2.3 million shares, including the sale by Standard Life of 500,000 shares at €1.17. Heavy bid interest with few sellers meant that volume in CRH was low but the shares were 19 cents higher on €20.67.

Among the financials, Bank of Ireland was the star closing 21 cents higher on €11.55. Traders were puzzled over a deal of 20,000 shares at €12.00 in London - a deal that was so far out of the day's trading range that Dublin dealers believe that the broker concerned must have made an error. AIB was two cents firmer on €13.01.

Green disclosed that it has sold back into the market the 150,000 shares it has bought back in recent months. These 150,000 shares - bought from small investors at around €7.5 - were sold to an institutional buyer at €7.60 each. McInerney did not trade from its overnight €2.70, but Fidelity has emerged as a recent buyer of 323,000 shares to take its stake in the house-builder to just over 10 per cent.

Elsewhere, Kerry was boosted by positive a.g.m. comments and dealt up 26 cents to €13.80 in volume of 318,000 shares - hefty trading for an illiquid stock.