THE Irish market drifted backwards in line with the weaker tone on overseas markets, but CRH proved a notable exception to the negative tone.

The market was impressed by CRH's £55 million acquisition in the central US, which will add about 1p to earnings per share in the current year and will also involve no goodwill write offs.

CRH dealt up 5p on the Dublin market to a new high of 557p but was the focus of some erratic trading in London. After opening at 570p sterling, CRH shares rose as high as 584 1/2p before falling back to 571p and finally closing up 5p on the day on 575p sterling. Turnover was just over 825,000 shares.

Greencore was another to buck the generally weaker trend and dealt up 8p to 306p in heavy trading. Green also closed ahead on the day with a 10p gain to 230p. Financial shares were generally weak with AIB (given a bullish review from Morgan Stanley analysts) down 2p on 320p and Bank of Ireland was 1p weaker on 417p. Irish Life was unchanged on 251p however, ahead of today's results where embedded profit forecasts vary between £74 million and £77 million.

Anglo Irish Bank was unchanged on 58p. Fidelity has disclosed that it has been a heavy seller of the shares in the past three months, with its stake down from 8.1 per cent to 6.9 per cent, involving the disposal of 2.8 million Anglo Irish shares.

After the initial weakening following Monday's announcement of the £496 million takeover of Athena and the issue of 9.5 million shares, Elan has bounced back strongly on Wall Street and was trading yesterday at over $63 (£40), a rise of over $2 1/2 on the previous close. The Athena deal is seen as an excellent move for Elan despite the earnings' dilution in the first year.

Smurfit lost some of its recent gains and closed down 6p to 153p after JS Corp drifted downwards, on Wall Street.