Heavy losses in London after poorly received results from Glaxo Wellcome and British Telecom, and a weak opening session in anticipation of a hike in interest rates, failed to drive the Irish market lower by anything more than a few points, although any sustained weakness in the City and Wall Street will undoubtedly hit demand for Irish shares.
Smurfit was by far the best of the Irish stocks and jumped 16 cents to
the sterling equivalent of €2.69 (£2.12) after Smurfit Stone announced the sale of its American timberlands for $725 million (€677 million).
The price fetched for the timberlands was in line with expectations, but the sale means that Smurfit Stone is well on course to meet its target of asset disposals of $2.2 billion.
CRH continued to recover after some recent hefty losses and the shares dealt up 8 cents to €18.68 (£14.71).
Otherwise, however, it was all downward with AIB losing 10 cents to €12.70 (£10.00), while Bank of Ireland was 8 cents lower on €8.92 (£7.03).
Irish Life & Permanent was another financial to weaken, easing 20 cents to €9.80 (£7.72) in after-hours trading, while First Active was 2 cents down on €3.48 (£2.74).
Fyffes recovered some ground after buying in another 200,000 shares at €1.85 (£1.46) and the shares dealt up 7 cents from their overnight level to €1.95 (£1.54). Whether this recovery means that the share buy-ins have been successful in setting a floor for Fyffes remains to be seen.
Property group Green lost 5 cents to €5.85 (£4.61). Morgan Stanley Asset Management has disclosed that it has sold almost 2.1 million shares on date unknown to take its stake down to 8.6 million shares, or 6.66 per cent of the total.
