Although leading financials continued to trade nervously ahead of key meetings on interest rates at the Bank of England and the European Central Bank, Eircom had its best day for weeks due to a combination of sectoral and domestic factors. Eircom closed up 10 cents on €4.15 (£3.27) after peaking at €4.19 (£3.30).
The sectoral factor boosting Eircom was the mammoth MCI bid for Sprint, a development that stimulated the entire sector. The domestic factor was the outcome of the Meteor/Orange case in the High Court, a result that is expected to delay further the award of a third mobile phone licence. This will give Eircom's mobile subsidiary, Eircell, (and rival Esat Digifone) even more time to capitalise on the mobiles boom, and particularly the lucrative Christmas market.
Other leading stocks were weaker, with CRH down sharply by 47 cents to €18.48 (£14.55) while Bank of Ireland drifted six cents lower on €8.04 (£6.33). Irish Life & Permanent was down 10 cents on €10.70 (£8.43) although AIB bucked the weaker tone among the large cap stocks and was three cents higher on €11.89 (£9.36). Smurfit was weaker and lost 10 cents to €2.62 (£2.06).
The Stock Exchange has disclosed that three stocks whose primary listing is on the NASDAQ - Iona, Icon and Trinity Biotech - will have their price on the NASDAQ used for the purposes of ISEQ adjustments. This brings the stocks in line with Elan whose NYSE price is used as the basis of adjusting the domestic index.
