Optimism over next week's Bank of Ireland results continued to buoy financial stocks on the ISEQ yesterday even though there is still caution ahead of the European Central Bank decision on interest rates and the Bank of England's monetary policy committee meeting later this week.

Bank of Ireland rose 15 cents to €7.57 (£5.96) and AIB was up 30 cents to €12.20 (£9.61). Irish Life & Permanent continued to progress closing up 10 cents to €9.80 (£7.72). Eircom, assisted by sectoral gains particularly in British telecom stocks Vodafone AirTouch and Energis, notched up gains, and was 3 cents higher at €3.99 (£3.14). Smurfit gained 8 cents to close at €2.55 (£2.01).

CRH was up 11 cents at €18.06 (£14.22). Independent was 12.5 cents down at €4.90 (£3.86). Ryanair, which announced last night that it plans to increase operations at Stanstead Airport next year after Aer Lingus announced a similar move, was 10 cents higher at €7.90 (£6.22). Recruitment company Marlborough, now deemed to be in an offer period by the Takeover Panel, moved strongly ahead in London, closing up 55p sterling to £2.225 sterling (€3.48) but there was no trading on the ISEQ.

Tullow Oil, which announced plans to raise £18.9 million sterling (€29.5 million) through a placing and open offer to existing shareholders for funding purposes, was back one cent to 89 cents (70p) on the ISEQ but was up 1.5p sterling to 58p sterling (72p) in London. Ivernia West was up 10 cents to €1.02 (80p) with the first shipments from its Lisheen zinc/lead mine due to begin this month.