MARKET REPORT:IT WAS another day in negative territory for the Dublin market yesterday as continued weakness in Elan and an 8 per cent drop in Anglo Irish Bank's share price took their toll.

The Iseq fell 70.24 points, a drop of nearly 1.6 per cent, to 4,371.62.

Investor disappointment in Elan's disease drug development programme, which failed to live up to market expectations, continued to weigh heavily on the stock.

Although its decline yesterday was nowhere near as dramatic as Wednesday's when it lost one-third of its value, Elan still ended the day nearly 4 per cent weaker as it slipped back 52 cents to €13.50.

Anglo Irish Bank was also under pressure for most of the day as banking stocks saw strong volumes of shares traded.

The stock saw more than 8 per cent shaved off the value of its share price as it shed 46.6 cents to €5.12.

Other banking stocks were marginally weaker - Bank of Ireland eased back four cents to €5.35, while Irish Life & Permanent slipped back 2.6 cents to €5.176.

However, AIB bucked the trend thanks to the better-than-expected results announced on Wednesday. It ended the day up more than 1 per cent as it tacked on 9.5 cents to €7.945.

Construction stocks enjoyed mixed fortunes. CRH was a bit softer, giving up some of the gains it made on Wednesday as it lost 29 cent to €16.50.

Interest in Grafton saw its share price rise more than 4 per cent, a jump of 15 cents to €3.70. Kingspan was marginally stronger as it eased ahead just 1.7 cents to €6.248.

Ryanair, which has seen quite heavy volumes of shares traded in the past few days, had a quieter day. Nevertheless, its share price continued to decline, dropping 1.8 per cent or 4.5 cents to €2.44.

Settlement date: August 6th