Irish shares rallied again today to repair all the damage done to share values last week. The ISEQ index closed 177 points higher at 5,550, a gain of 3.3 per cent.
Once again financial and leading industrials drove share prices higher with the leading banks recording strong gains. AIB added 12 cents to euro 11.17, Bank of Ireland put on 25 cents to euro 9.40.
Eircom gained 7 cents to euro 2.47 while CRH jumped by euro 1.37 to euro 18.12.
Market heavyweight Elan, which makes up over 20 per cent of the ISEQ gained euro 3.50 to euro 60.00 after a strong opening in New York where most of its shares are traded.
The FTSE 100 extended its recovery to a third day spurred by US consumer confidence data which showed a gain for the first time in six months.
The FTSE 100 index raced ahead in the last minutes of trade and closed up 151.5 or 2.7 per cent at 5,728.1.
Lloyds TSB was up 6.8 per cent, Bank of Scotland gained 5.8 per cent, Barclays edged up 5 per cent while Royal Bank of Scotland rose 4.8 per cent.
Telecoms eased off from yesterday's rally but the heavy-weights supported the FTSE gains and Vodafone was up 3.4 per cent, British Telecom rose 5.3 per cent and Cable & Wireless put on 4.7 per cent.
Pharmaceuticals looked stronger spurred on by GlaxoSmithKline whose shares rose 4.4 per cent. AstraZeneca gained 1.7 per cent.
Wall Street got off to a strong start today buoyed by figures showing US consumer confidence beginning to improve.
The Dow Jones gained 114.48 to 9,802.01 in mid-morning. The tech-laden Nasdaq composite index put on 49.34 to 1,967.83. The broad S&P 500 index advanced at 17.01 to 1,169.70.