On a relatively featureless day, the Irish market bucked international trends and finished marginally ahead, picking up 0.07 per cent to close at 5,876.22.

Investors will still have to wait until the end of this month and the beginning of next month for the results season to give a bit more direction to the market.

Financials again led the market with some decent buying in both AIB and Bank of Ireland. AIB gained 13 cents on the day to close at €12.50 with more than two million shares changing hands. Rival Bank of Ireland picked up 10 cents to €10.54 on a smaller volume of just under 1.95 million shares. Irish Life & Permanent was five cents stronger at €13.30. First Active was up five cents at €3.30. Bucking the trend among the financials was Anglo Irish Bank, which shed three cents to €3.92 on reasonable volumes of 800,000 shares traded.

CRH put in a good day, continuing its upward trend of the past few days. It was 34 cents stronger at the end of the day when it closed at €19.88. Kerry Group was up five cents at €14.10 with just under 600,000 shares traded, while Grafton gained five cents to €3.

Market heavyweight Elan dropped back 73 cents to €59.97 on thin volumes of 30,000 shares, while Green Property gave up some of its gains of recent days, losing seven cents to €7.13. Also trading down was Ryanair, which shed 12 cents to €10.90 on modest volumes.

Despite continued strong trading in its shares, with more than three million changing hands, Eircom again finished the day unchanged at €1.34.