Despite some weakness last year, the Irish stock market is still one of the best-performing markets in Europe this year. Year to date, the ISEQ Index is up just over 1 per cent, compared with the Eurobloc 300 index, which is down over 8 per cent in the same period. The top performers have been Elan, Ryanair and Galen, which have led the market, while some of the smaller capitalised stocks have also fared well. Davy Stockbrokers is recommending that investors should favour financial stocks, with some of the smaller industrial stocks also worth consideration.