Settlement day: December 4th

The Irish stock market inched higher in light volume yesterday as a lack of corporate news and the US Thanksgiving holiday combined to dampen activity.

European markets provided little inspiration as most struggled to find direction with Wall Street closed. A strong dollar and a 3.48 per cent gain in Tokyo's Nikkei index yesterday helped the French and German markets to close higher although London's FTSE 100 finished 2.2 points lower and below the 4,900 point level. "With the US closed for Thanksgiving, there hasn't been a huge amount of activity. There hasn't been any corporate news either so it's been pretty uninteresting," one dealer said.

But traders said that if Asian markets managed to repeat the performance of recent days and hold firm on Friday, European markets should manage to finish the week in good shape.

The ISEQ index of Irish shares gained 14.1 points or 0.38 per cent to 3,757.39 with activity mainly focused on the leading stocks. The financial index gained 0.65 per cent against 0.21 per cent for the industrial index.

Dealers said the financial sector generally was being boosted by the prospect that corporation tax would be cut in next Wednesday's budget.

"Most of the industrial stocks are already on a 10 per cent corporation tax rate so it's those companies in the financial sector that stand to benefit," one trader said.

Dealers said financial stocks as well as those with direct exposure to the Irish economy would also be underpinned by expectations that the Minister for Finance would lower personal taxation in the budget, providing a further stimulus to economic activity.

Mr McCreevy is widely expected to announce income tax cuts of around £350 million next week.

Both banks edged higher with Bank of Ireland gaining 7p to 907p and AIB up 5p at 590p. Irish Life firmed 1p to 348p while Irish Permanent was also 1p higher at 656p.

Among the leading industrials, Smurfit was steady at 198. Dealers said it was inclined to run into profit-taking as soon as it breached the 200p level.

Building materials group CRH gained 15p to 792. Some dealers said it was helped by switching out of Redland, which earlier this week agreed to a 345p per share takeover offer from French rival, Lafarge after holding out against the bidder's earlier offer. But other traders simply attributed CRH's rise to positive sentiment toward the sector in Britain. Avonmore Waterford, which has already lost 10p since Tuesday when it announced plans to shed 750 jobs in Ireland and 550 in Britain, slipped a further 5p to 245p.

Elsewhere in the food sector, Kerry shed 20p to 750p while Greencore lost 3p to 305p before recovering to close unchanged at 308p.