Weaker international markets and a general lack of interest meant that the Irish market drifted almost 0.5 per cent lower, with little sign that buying interest will return next week. While a strong improvement by Elan restricted the losses to 0.5 per cent, profit-taking dragged index heavyweight CRH sharply lower. Second-line stocks did, however, show some promise.

CRH hit an intra-day high of €19.15 (£15.08) but profit-taking has since dragged the share lower and it closed down another 65 cents yesterday on €18.40 (£14.49). The leading financials were dull, with Bank of Ireland unchanged on €17.90 (£14.10) and AIB down 15 cents on €14.35 (£11.30). Smurfit was seven cents weaker on €2.53 (£1.99).

Among the second-liners, DCC was 15 cents firmer on €8.75 (£6.89) ahead of annual results on Monday. Company broker Davy is expecting profits of €57.8 million and earnings per share of 54.2 cents for the industrial holding company, which will be posting its results within five weeks of its year-end.

Heiton was five cents firmer on €2.80 (£2.21) after it emerged that AIB Investment Managers had been in the market for the shares, picking up more than 526,000 to take its stake to 5.1 million shares or almost 11 per cent.

Independent continued its strong run and added another 15 cents to €5.05 (£3.98) while Unidare was 10 cents easier on €2.50 (£1.97) after yet another profits' warning.

New York trading saw Elan continue its recovery and the share was trading $2 higher on $61 as the Irish market closed. Failure to buy Cablelink has had limited impact on Esat shares with a view in some circles that, given the amount of money involved and the required capital expenditure, losing Cablelink to NTL is not necessarily a disaster for Esat.