With Wall Street regaining its composure, Irish share prices moved ahead but volumes remained modest and the market suffered from the absence of many fund managers on a trip to see the American operations of some of the bigger Irish plcs.
Most of the leading stocks made solid gains with AIB up 7p on 597p, Bank of Ireland up 6p on 873p and CRH up 7 1/2p on 827 1/2p. James Crean was 5p lower as it emerged that US mutual fund, Mutual Discovery, was one of the recent big sellers, unloading 1.96 million shares last Friday to take its stake down to 8 per cent.
Fyffes was unchanged on 104p but the market welcomed the purchase of £640,000 worth of shares by the McCann family interests as a vote of confidence in the group. The McCann's Balkan Investment company bought the shares last week at 100p and 104p.
Given its rise to £12.35, it came as no surprise that Kingspan is splitting it share with a four-for-one bonus issue.
This will increase the shares in issue from 33 million to 165 million and bring the unit share price down to a far more manageable 250p. Don't be surprised if Grafton - trading at £13.50 - also splits its shares to make them more marketable to smaller investors.
Irish Life was 5p stronger on 375p, Jurys continued to power ahead and closed up 10p on 460p while Smurfit gained 1p to 222p.
