A rebound on European markets in anticipation of widespread interest rate cuts allowed the Irish market to regain a sizeable chunk of its recent losses and the ISEQ closed up 2 per cent with most of the leaders notching up sizeable gains.
There may be strong misgivings in many quarters - notably among shareholders who sold directly into the flotation at the 225p price - but First Active shares surged on their first day on the markets. The shares began trading at 245p, rose as high as 290p, then falling back before regaining that level to close up 65p on the day. A first-day premium of almost 29 per cent, however, strongly suggests that the flotation was underpriced and that First Active could have been more aggressive in its pricing.
The strong rise in the financial shares provided a solid background for the First Active trading. Among those financials, AIB recovered 50p to 892p while Bank of Ireland was 30p higher on £10.25. Irish Permanent gained 25p to 765p but Irish Life drifted 5p to 440p.
CRH benefited from an upgrade to "buy" from Salomon Smith Barney and gained 32p to 802p. Smurfit dipped to a new intra-day low of 87p before recovering slightly to close unchanged on 90p.
IAWS, which reports full-year results today, lost 7p to 165p but few in the market read any significance in that fall. Another to go against the trend and fall on the day was IWP which lost 15p to 180p. Greencore, however, recovered from some recent heavy falls and was 10p higher on 220p.
On Nasdaq, some of the Irish technology stocks which fell heavily on Monday, regained some ground. Esat was trading $2 higher on $26 1/2 after plummeting $5 on Monday although Iona remained weak and was trading marginally lower on $18 1/2.
