A strong close on Wall Street last Friday had the Irish market geared up for positive trading yesterday and continuing buoyancy in international markets ensured a good start to the week on the ISEQ.

Leading stocks which had lost ground in recent trading made good their return with AIB, closing up 23p to 946p and Bank of Ireland, finishing up 22p at 1342p, but gaining 46p sterling (53p) in London, closing at £11.75 sterling (£13.52). Irish Life was up 15p at 600p.

"With any luck we'll see Irish stocks regaining last week's lost ground," one dealer said. However, Irish Permanent was unchanged on two deals, at 850p, while Anglo Irish only notched up 2p.

Volumes were thin all round, but leading industrials also rebounded on the wave of good feeling, with CRH, in particular, closing at 935 sterling (£10.76), an increase of 51p. "There have been a number of buyers in the market and not a lot of stock, so it could be that people have just had to bite the bullet and pay up, and that has squeezed the price," a dealer said.

Smurfit also regained, to close up 5p at 238p, while Greencore closed 1.76p up at 366.75p. Ahead of results tomorrow, Ryanair held onto its 510p price. But smaller stocks showed slight movement, with one dealer saying that many had to mark down before they found their level.

Clondalkin was down 11p to 564p sterling, Barlo down 1p to 82p and IAWS back 5p to 315p. ILP, the computer packaging group, slipped by 16 per cent, when it shed 8.5p to 37p. Waterford Wedgeford, meanwhile, closed 4p up at 114p in three deals. AIB announced that it had applied to list 179,400 new ordinary shares on its stock market lists, 111,000 of which were allotted under the Executive Share Option Scheme, while 68,400 were allotted under the Dauphin Deposit Corporation Stock Option Plan.