Some sizeable trading in building products firm Kingspan - traditionally an illiquid stock with more than a quarter of the shares held by directors - was one of the few highlights on a dull day on the Dublin market. There was some chunky two-day trading in selected stocks, but price movements were negligible.
Kingspan has been trading at €4.25 to €4.35 for some time but there are some indications that the stock might be about to break out of this trading range. After peaking at €4.38, the shares were left bid at the closing price of €4.35, up three cents on the day.
CRH edged three cents higher to €19.68 in volume of just over a million shares. US investment group Putnam has been a recent buyer of CRH and has disclosed a 7.35 per cent stake. Its last disclosure was almost a year ago when it had 5.3 per cent of CRH.
With Orange plunging on its first day's trading, telecom stocks came under pressure. Eircom is now trading in tandem with Vodafone and the 8p fall in the British group's shares was the main reason for Eircom's two-cent fall to €2.59.
Barlo also saw some sizeable trading and was a cent higher on €1.15 in volume of 1.2 million shares.
Qualceram was unchanged on €3.20 - Gartmore's Irish Growth Fund has been a recent buyer, adding 301,491 shares to take its stake to 1.4 million or 6.7 per cent of the total.
