As and from today, January 11th, 2000, a number of changes have been made to The Irish Times markets page. The Dublin report will no longer carry prices converted from euros to pounds. The report will be in euros only.

The FTSE Eurotop 100 replaces the Eurotop 100 table previously carried. This table contains stocks from both euro and non-euro markets. Where the stock price reported is from a market which trades in euros the price in the table is a euro price; where the stock is from a non-euro market, the price reported is in the local currency. Hence, British stocks are reported in sterling with the country code denoted by UK; German stocks are reported in euros and are denoted by the country code ED.

The London closing prices will in future be reported in alphabetical order. The category headings previously used have been dropped for reasons of simplicity of presentation and due to pressure on space. The above revisions have been undertaken to improve the markets service to readers and to mark the end of the first year of transition to the euro. Euro notes and coins will come into circulation in January 2002.

For further information e-mail: finance@irish-times.ie