After all the frenetic activity earlier in the week, the Irish market eased lower yesterday due to a combination of modest profit-taking and a shortage of stock. The index closed a few points off Thursday's all-time high, but this does not really reflect the strength of demand in the market.
Most of the price changes took place among the industrial shares and Smurfit suffered from renewed bearishness in the US packaging sector and lost 8p to 195p. The other leading industrial, CRH, was also marginally weaker and lost 5p to 880p.
Among the second-liners, there were some good gains. Fyffes, however, lost some of its recent gains and fell 4p to 134p - although this may be reversed on Monday when the market digests the £940,000 share purchase by the McCann family at prices between 119p and 131p last Monday and Tuesday.
Ryanair also suffered on reports that the baggage handlers dispute is beginning to bite and fell 13p to 350p. Marlborough was suspended at its 200p high after announcing an £18 million sterling acquisition and the placing of £5 million worth of shares with the vendors.
Anglo Irish Bank was 3p higher on 148p after bullish comments at the AGM, DCC hit a new high of 500p up 8p on the day, while Golden Vale continued its excellent start to the year and closed up 1p on 106p.
