The market finished slightly stronger yesterday, with volumes boosted by investors rushing to trade in time for the last pre-Christmas settlement date.
The main banks were in good shape, with AIB and Bank of Ireland managing to find strong support. AIB rose five cents to 12.40, while Bank of Ireland was solid as it added 13 cents to finish at 10.68. The bank said it had bought back 200,000 shares on Thursday at an average price of 10.54, with analysts now expecting the rolling buyback to continue until it enters a closed period in March.
Anglo Irish Bank gave up a small part of its recent gains with a drop of 10 cents to 12.70 on volume of more than five million shares. Irish Life & Permanent also weakened, dropping five cents to 12.40.
CRH won back losses recorded earlier in the week by rising 35 cents to 16.10 on reasonably good volume. Fellow heavyweight Ryanair fell back three cents to 6.60 in the wake of losing its Strasbourg appeal.
Elsewhere, Fyffes was unchanged at 1.62 after signalling that business had been better than expected over the past couple of months. Elan was better, rising 20 cents to €5.25 on solid volume.
Good volume also came in Dragon Oil, where two million shares were traded. The exploration stock was steady at 45 cents.
The busiest company of the day was once again Waterford Wedgwood, which rose 0.3 cents to 22.5 cents. Dealers say the firm's €38.5 million rights issue now looks to be well supported, with suggestions circulating of new structures being put in place to protect its US operations against severe fluctuations in the dollar.
