After a dismal few months when the share has plummeted from a high of €3.34, Smurfit is finally showing some signs of life with strong demand driving the share ahead 11 cents to €1.89 yesterday. There were unconfirmed reports of a "buy" recommendation from Paine Webber, but whatever the reason there was enough bid interest to result in over 6 million shares trading - way higher than Smurfit's daily average.

Otherwise it was pretty weak with Bank of Ireland's DIRT tax settlement with the Revenue Commissioners damaging sentiment. AIB - potentially exposed to DIRT liabilities running into hundreds of millions of pounds - fell again and closed another 10 cents weaker on €9.20. Bank of Ireland regained seven cents to €6.57, Irish Life was 15 cents lower on €8.50, while First Active was down 15 cents on €2.05.

Industrials were generally marginally weaker with CRH down 15 cents on €19.10, although Eircom was up three cents Fyffes lost another two cents to €1.08, Heiton was hit by post-results profit-taking and lost 35 cents to €2.90, while Waterford Wedgwood gained two cents to €1.16.

After initially losing more ground to a low of £4.74 sterling, a "buy" recommendation from Merrill Lynch and a "buy on weakness" note from Close Brothers helped Baltimore to close 7p higher on the day on £4.95 sterling (€7.85) in London.

The headings for the Euro Exchange Rates and IR£Cross-Rate tables on the markets page in yesterday's editions of the newspaper were transposed due to an error in the production process.