SHARES in Dublin remained largely unchanged yesterday in quiet trading. With virtually no company news to drive the market forwards, there were few investors active in the market.
Dealers said the lethargy in Dublin was mainly in response to pre-election jitters in London with fears of rising interest rates after the election making the institutions cautious.
In the financial sector, AIB rose nearly a penny to 463p. Bank of Ireland, however, ended the day unchanged on 680p despite having notched up gains earlier in the session. Ahead of its results today, Anglo Irish Bank was unchanged at 81p. Hibernian dropped 10p to 320p, Irish Life was unchanged at 320p while Irish Permanent dropped a penny to 605p.
Woodchester was also holding steady at 280p.
Both of the leading industrial shares turned weaker, with CRH slipping a penny to 642p and Smurfit was also off 2p at 158p.
Food stocks put in a mixed performance. Kerry was unchanged at 625p while Golden Vale rose 3p to 65p. Avonmore was also steady, trading at its previous close of 230p while Waterford Foods slipped 3p to 90p, amid the continuing clarification of the terms of Avonmore's bid for the company. Greencore also turned weaker, going 8p lower to 330p.
Elsewhere. Kingspan added 10p on the day to close at 690p, Unidare was unchanged at 200p, while Independent lost 10 to 335p.
Irish bonds were also steady with dealers reporting good two-way trade. The 6 1/2 per cent bond due in 2001 was up 13p to £101.92 to yield 5.90 per cent while the key benchmark 8 per cent bond due in 2006 gained 10p to £108.40 to yield 6.638 per cent.
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