Major stocks drifted further in a muted day of trading activity on the ISEQ against a backdrop of volatile European bourses.

"The main feature was the continuing weakness, particularly in AIB," said one dealer.

Bank of Ireland held its price of €17.90 (£14.10), but only because its results are due on Monday, according to the dealer who remarked that the honeymoon the banks have had with international investors may be over. AIB eased back 35 cents to €14.00 (£11.03). Irish Life & Permanent was back 15 cents to €13.30 (£10.47), but First Active was up 5 cents to €3.55 (£2.80). The scene among the industrials was equally bleak, with CRH back 30 cents to €18.10 (£14.25). It announced plans to purchase two Finnish operations from the Swedish construction group Scancem. Smurfit was back 5 cents to €2.48 (£1.95) and Ardagh back 30 cents to €2.00 (£1.58), a drop of 13 per cent.

Clondalkin managed to notch up 10 cents, rising to €7.10 (£5.59), and Grafton, which now has an 8.85 per cent stake in Heiton, was unchanged at €20.00 (£15.75). Heiton was back 5 cents to €2.75 (£2.17). DCC, which reported a 27 per cent increase in pre-tax profits to €59.2 million (£46.6 million) on a €1.06 billion (£834 million) turnover, was unchanged at €8.75 (£6.89).

Among the exploration stocks, Tullow was up the equivalent of 3.5 cents to 52p sterling (€0.785), representing a 15.5 per cent increase on its share price over two weeks. One industry source said oil exploration stocks were back in favour in the light of a resurgence in oil prices and the merger talk among merger players.

Minmet was up about 1 cent, from 0.0925 sterling to 15 cents (12p). It announced that it had completed 36,000 line kilometres of its airborne survey over its optioned gold concession in the 7,000 sq km Cuiaba Basin in Brazil's Mato Grosso.