The overnight rebound in TMT stocks on Nasdaq and follow-on rises on European markets saw most Irish technology shares notch up sizeable gains, and those gains were being consolidated in late trading in New York.
Baltimore bounded ahead to a high of £8.40 sterling (€13.71) but then fell sharply after announcing that it will be issuing another 91 million shares to pay for the £702 million sterling Content Technologies acquisition. Indigestion with the extra shares rather than any negative reaction to the Content deal was behind the weakness, dealers said.
Other technology shares, however, kept their gains, with Trintech up €2.80 on the Neuer Markt on €32.30. Parthus dealt up 19 1/2p to £3.38 sterling in London and was trading up $1 (€1.2) in midday Nasdaq trading on $47. By the same time on Nasdaq, Smartforce was up $3 5/8 on $51 3/4, Trintech was over $2 1/2 higher on $27 1/2 and Iona was up $2 1/2 on $81.
In contrast, trading on the domestic market was lacklustre although financial shares continued their modest recovery. There was chunky trading in Bank of Ireland (4.7 million shares) as the share rose 14 cents to €7.20, AIB was 15 cents firmer on €10.95, while Irish Life added 10 cents to €10.80.
Eircom drifted a cent lower to €2.67 as the board licked its wounds after Wednesday's a.g.m., Fyffes fell three cents to a low of 90 cents, while CRH - stuck in a range since the recent placing at €18 a share - was one cent lower on €18.04. Grafton dropped 25 cents to €24.25 (the price at which chief executive Mr Norman Kilroy cashed in share options at a £100,000 profit), Kerry bounced back from post-results profit-taking and was 30 cents firmer on €14.85, while Smurfit halted its slump with a one cent gain to €1.90.
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