With London closed, trading on the Dublin market was extremely light, with the market reporting one of the quietest days of the summer. The late rally by Wall Street on Friday is expected to provide some support in the London market today, and this should be reflected in trading in Dublin, say dealers.

Smurfit was the focus for most of the heavy trading, finishing up 5p on 225p. This was part of an earlier trend, which started on Friday afternoon, when worry about the US paper market started to abate.

Dealers expect Smurfit to at least stay stable in the short term, although the price may fluctuate depending on US developments. Crean dropped down 5p to close at 190, despite slow trading during last week.

The financials were also subject to low volume trading, with AIB down 1p to close at 570p, while Bank of Ireland closed up 1p on 772. The trading on Irish Life was slightly more vigorous, closing up 3p on 338p, while Irish Permanent stayed put.

The other movers were Greencore, up 2p to finish on 320p, while Woodchester shed 5p to close at 275p.

The bond market was equally quiet, with the only notable development being the German inflation figures which were up 0.2 per cent on the month, which strengthened the deutschmark but the German gilt market came off a bit on the back of it.

Dealers say the Bundesbank's setting of its repo rate today will provide a major focus for the markets, while investors will also be paying attention to economic data releases, including US consumer confidence data later in the week.