Wall Street's merry dance through the 10,000 mark for the Dow had been anticipated in early trading on European markets. And although the Dow was teetering just above the magic 10,000 level, share prices in Dublin remained firm with huge overseas demand for the two main banks entirely responsible for the 1.6 per cent rise in the ISEQ Overall Index.

A combination of factors drove Bank of Ireland up 7 per cent and AIB up 4 per cent - the strength of international markets, the recent enthusiastic review of the two banks by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and the recent underperformance during which the banks fell by almost 20 per cent from their January-February highs.

The demand for the banks came almost entirely from overseas with little domestic involvement in yesterday's hectic trading, to the extent that much of the trading was directly between overseas investors. Remarkably, Bank of Ireland initially fell to a starting low of €17.70 (£13.94) before being driven steadily upwards to a late high of €19.60 (£15.44) before the share finally closed up €1.30 (£1.02) on the day on €19.40 (£15.28). AIB hit a high of €15.75 (£12.40) before closing up 55 cents on the day on €15.55 (£12.25).

Otherwise there was little happening with CRH coming back from a bright start to close down 5 cents on €16.30 (£12.84). Almost 39 per cent of CRH shareholders have opted for the scrip dividend and 1.08 million new shares will be issued in lieu of the cash dividend.

Elsewhere, just to show that there is still some demand for small cap stocks, McInerney disclosed that Mercury Asset Management has increased its stake from 7.53 per cent to 8.17 per cent after recent buying of almost 700,000 shares. Ryanair was up 40 cents to €7.50 (£5.91) after being given an "outperform" tag by Goldman Sachs. Smurfit continued to improve hitting a high of €2.00 (£1.58) before closing up 6 cents of €1.97 (£1.55).