The Irish market followed a downward trajectory today until late in the afternoon session when it enjoyed a turnaround as the US market firmed up. The Iseq overall index ended the day up 9.25 points at 2,386.90.
The main newsflow came from M&T Bank, in which AIB holds a 24 per cent stake, which reported disappointing first-quarter results. Despite this setback, the State's largest bank gained another 2.27 per cent bringing it to €0.90.
Bank of Ireland was also up on the day, closing up almost 3 per cent at €0.70, but volumes in both banks were fairly light, and indeed trading across the Irish market was relatively subdued.
Elsewhere in the financial sector, Irish Life & Permanent was out of favour, tumbling more than 11 per cent, almost 24 cent, to €1.85.
The other stock-specific news of the day related to fruit and vegetable distributor Total Produce which announced that it has bought a 50 per cent stake in Dutch soft fruit business ASF Holland.
The stock slipped 1 per cent, but given the low levels at which it is trading this amounted to a loss of less than a cent, and it closed more or less flat at just under €0.28.
One of the biggest losers on the day was Independent News & Media - due to publish full year results on Friday - which fell by more than 6 per cent to €0.21.
The FTSE 100 index was 0.1 per cent lower, while Germany's DAX was up 0.3 per cent and France's CAC 40 rose 0.2 per cent.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 1.3 per cent to 843.5 at 17.45 in New York after dropping as much as 0.7 per cent earlier.
(Additional reporting: Reuters)