Market enjoys solid trading with the focus on financials

IRISH shares put in a good performance with the Dublin market managing to outpace both London and New York.

Buoyed by strong demand from overseas investors, share prices rallied throughout the day to pushing the overall value of shares marginally higher.

Most attention was focussed on the financial sector, with AIB and Bank of Ireland both seeing active trading. AIB finished the day down a penny at 367p while Bank of Ireland managed to gain 2p to 478p.

Ahead of interim results tomorrow, Irish Life moved ahead to gain 2p to 240p following good interest in the stock. Irish Permanent was unchanged at 423p, while Woodchester put on 2p to 192p. Anglo Irish Bank continued to trade at 67p and Hibernian also traded higher up from 254p to 260p.

In other sectors, Independent was well bid at 310p, closing up 3p yesterday following news that it is set to make a historic £442 million bid for the Wilson & Horton newspaper group in New Zealand.

Golden Vale surprised the market with a much worse-than-expected performance in the first half of the year. Interim figures issued by the co-op yesterday show a 49 per cent drop in pre-tax profits to £4.1 million. Despite the poor performance, the share managed to gain ground in Dublin, trading up to 58p.

CRH drifted lower to close down 2p at 610, while Smurflt moved up a penny to 164p.

Other stocks on the move included Adare which gained 12p to 487p, Crean which edged up 5p to 220p and Green Property, which put on 5p to 240p.

The Irish bond market pushed ahead in sizeable late trade yesterday with the market responding well to fresh US economic data and a five-year bond issue by the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA). The NTMA issue was well over-subscribed, according to dealers.

The agency set a £100 million tap in the five-year bond in late trading, but due to strong demand sold a total of £212.50 million, which the NTMA said was insufficient to satisfy demand.

Meanwhile the 8 per cent bond, due in 2001, was up 10p at £105.15 to yield 6.79 per cent. The 8 per cent bond due in 2006 rose 38p to £105.49 to yield 7.08 per cent.