MARKET REPORT:There was no stopping the Irish market yesterday as takeover rumours helped to spur activity and push the Iseq index of Irish shares up 2 per cent.

Dealers welcomed the gains after a period of underperformance, saying that there was potential for more increases to come.

The main impetus came from rumours that HBOS was looking at Bank of Ireland as a possible takeover target. Shares jumped as much as 5.7 per cent before falling back to close up 3.8 per cent, or 60 cents, at €16.45.

Dealers dismissed the rumour, saying that Bank of Ireland is subject to such talk at least once a year. The bank itself declined to comment on what it called "market speculation".

Still, even if there was no truth behind the talk, the positive momentum helped to push other stocks higher too, with Anglo and AIB closing 3.8 per cent and 2.3 per cent higher, at €17.02 and €22.85, respectively.

Interest was strong again in Independent News & Media, with 6.6 million shares trading in Dublin and a further 9.4 million in London.

Speculation continued that telecoms entrepreneur Denis O'Brien was adding to his stake, with his name mentioned in connection with several trades of 1 million shares in Dublin and a trade of 3 million in London. They closed up 4.4 per cent, or 15 cents, at €3.60.

Another busy stock was Ryanair, with talk that chief executive Michael O'Leary had sold 6 million shares in the group, something dealers said he did about twice a year and was no reflection on the group's performance.

More than 9 million shares traded in Dublin, though the shares ended the day little changed, up just 2 cents at €6.12.

Smurfit Kappa was one of the few losers, dropping 1.5 per cent to €19.80 after a positive run prompted some profit-taking.

Settlement day: May 8th