Wall Street's inability to retain the gains which saw the Dow roar through the 10,000 mark on Monday night put a bit of a dampener on stock markets around the world. But the Irish stock market still managed to push ahead on the day, boosted by a stronger performance on Wall Street by Elan and a generally firmer tone to the leading stocks.
The one big highlight came on Nasdaq and the extraordinary mauling that Icon shares took after the profits warning that came with the third-quarter results.
The high multiples that companies like Icon enjoy on Nasdaq involve high expectations and profits warnings inevitably mean that the shares concerned are savaged. So it was with Icon which collapsed from the overnight $26.75 (€24.98) to a low of $10 before recovering slightly to a $11-$12 (€10.23-€11.16) range.
Other Irish technology stocks on Nasdaq were generally firmer, with Elan, Iona and Esat all ahead by the time the Irish market closed.
In Dublin, price movements were mixed with AIB down six cents at £10.70 sterling (€16.04 or £12.63) while Bank of Ireland was 10 cents firmer on €19.10 (£15.04). CRH was a cent weaker at £10.60 sterling (€15.89 or £12.51), while Kerry put on the best performance in the larger capitalisation group with a 20 cent jump to €12.40 (£9.77). Irish Life was 17 cents higher on €9 (£7.09) while merger partner Irish Permanent was unchanged on €14.10 (£11.10).
Among second-liners, Clondalkin slipped 10 cents to €6.65 (£5.24), First Active regained three cents to €3.93 (£3.10) while Golden Vale fell sharply and lost six cents to €1.12 (88p).
