Dublin Market: Banking stocks perked up yesterday to help the Irish stock market close higher despite the distractions of Cheltenham.

In spite of early weakness on Wall Street, the Iseq closed modestly higher, logging a gain of 0.7 per cent.

Dealers said Bank of Ireland enjoyed good volume, with close to six million shares traded, as the stock closed five cent higher at €12.45. AIB added 17 cent, or 1 per cent, to €15.72 in lighter volume, while Anglo Irish Bank was up by 24 cent, or 1.2 per cent, to €20.17.

Only Irish Life & Permanent trailed the financial pack, losing two cent to €14.30.

Meanwhile, Monday's big loser, Waterford Wedgwood, lost more ground, while the big gainer on Monday, Kingspan, advanced further.

Shares in the ceramic group fell below the four cent mark to close 7 per cent lower on the day with more than 11 million shares traded.

In contrast, Kingspan continued to enjoy the positive reaction to Monday's announcement that it is to acquire Century Homes for €91 million. The shares added a further 25 cent, or 2.7 per cent, to €9.70.

In Dublin, Elan added 23 cent, or 4 per cent, to €5.67 although the shares were down by a similar amount in New York as investors awaited further news on Tysabri.

Ryanair, which dealers described as very much a play on the oil price at the moment, gained eight cent to €6.00.

Shares in Independent News & Media added four cent, or 1.8 per cent, to €2.29 ahead of the release of results today. The company's 39.7 per cent associate, Itouch, sent a positive early signal by reporting it had returned to the black with a pretax profit of £3.7 million last year.

Other movers included C&C, which lost two cent to €3.11 as more than one million shares changed hands. Among the smaller stocks, Qualceram Shires added two cent to €1.32 in the wake of its full-year results.

Settlement Day: March 18th