Bank of Ireland shares came in for some heavy selling on the Irish market yesterday after publishing a trading statement which warned of flat first-half earnings because of the impact of lower equity prices on its life and pensions business.

More than 7.3 million Bank of Ireland shares were dealt with the share falling to a 2001 low of €7.85 as analysts revised their forecasts downwards by 4 to 5 per cent.

AIB and Irish Life & Permanent also have sizeable life and pensions businesses, and presumably are being affected in the same way as Bank of Ireland, but were not as hard hit, even though analysts are planning to revise forecasts downwards for both stocks. AIB was 14 cents lower in thin trading while Irish Life dropped 45 cents to €10.80 with 2.1 million shares trading.

Among the industrials, Ryanair was given a boost by bullish a.g.m. comments from chief executive Mr Michael O'Leary. The shares were up 63 cents on €8.14 and were also trading 10 per cent higher on Nasdaq in midday trading. Index heavyweight Elan benefited from a bullish research note from Merrill Lynch.

Merrill described Elan as a "core holding for healthcare and large-cap growth investors that are looking to capture top-tier earnings" and put a 12-month target of $61 on the shares. In midday trading on the NYSE, Elan was up $1.86 on $45.76 in heavy trading.

CRH drifted seven cents lower to €15.58, Fyffes was three cents firmer on €1.20 while Smurfit added a cent to close on €1.94 in turnover of 1.4 million shares. On overseas markets, Icon benefited from good first-quarter results and was up $1.40 on $31.40 but otherwise there was little of note in trading of tech shares.