Lively trading in the Irish stock market pushed the index up more than three-quarters of a percentage point yesterday, taking a more positive tone from international markets, which perked up on upbeat corporate news.

European shares ended higher yesterday after a strong start on the US markets and unexpectedly good earnings statements from Nokia and SAP which helped spark a late rally.

Wall Street opened sharply higher as technology shares took their cue from strong quarterly results at IBM.

In the domestic market switching between the two main banking stocks left both up on the day with AIB adding seven cents and Bank of Ireland up eight cents at #13 and #11.90 respectively.

There was also large volume traded in pharmaceutical Elan, which accounts for 25 per cent of the Irish index but mainly trades in the US market, and it ended the day up #2.00 at #72.

Leading industrial CRH ran into some large selling, dropping 58 cents to #19.88 while paper and packaging stock Smurfit added eight cents to #2.38.

Property developer Abbey saw its shares rise eight cents to #3.78, benefiting from an upbeat chairman's statement in its annual results statement.

Abbey's share price has risen by almost 17 per cent so far this year.

DCC added 24 cents to #11.45 and Jurys Doyle hotel chain notched up 27 cents to #10.11 continuing to benefit from their recent strong results which gave the market some comfort that the foot-and-mouth crisis had not hit them as badly as feared.