The market was in something of a holiday mood yesterday, with little trading of any great size although there were modest gains in most of the leaders. Smurfit and Telecom were the best of the large capitalisation stocks and both traded up well from their overnight levels.

Smurfit is still benefiting from positive reaction to the $725 million sale of Smurfit Stone's timberlands and the shares went within a cent of matching its high for the year as it gained seven cents to €2.75 (£2.17). There was some sizeable trading in Telecom in London - over six million shares - and in Dublin the shares recovered well from Thursday's losses with a six cent rise to €4.60 (£3.62).

The 2 per cent rise in London was largely driven by financial stocks, but Bank of Ireland was down three cents to €8.93 (£7.03) while AIB was 13 cents higher on €12.88 (£10.14). Anglo Irish gained seven cents to €2.47 (£1.95) while Irish Life & Permanent traded in a narrow range before closing five cents firmer on €9.95 (£7.84).

CRH recovered further from its recent plunge to as low as €18.00 (£14.18) and yesterday jumped 13 cents to €18.80 (£14.81). Kerry fell as low as €10.50 before recovering to close down five cents on the day on €10.75 (£8.47).

Independent - seen as a potential £200 million-plus bidder for the Belfast Telegraph - was down five cents to €4.40 (£3.47) while Ryanair came further off its recent highs with a 10 cent fall to €9.85 (£7.76).

Among the small-caps, Ryan was three cents firmer on €0.93 (£0.73) as analysts hiked their earnings forecast to reflect the recent hotel acquisitions in Cork and London.