The stock exchange was marginally firmer yesterday buoyed by a resilient performance by banking stocks and an earnings enhancing acquisition announcement by IAWS.
Financial stocks traded actively, defying the traditional summer lull, and Bank of Ireland ended the day up 28 cents at €12.00 while AIB and Anglo Irish Bank ran into late profit-taking closing down 10 cents and 1 cent at €13.10 and €4.42 respectively.
Food stock IAWS Group boosted its presence in the global speciality bread market after paying $55 million (€64 million) cash for an 80 per cent stake in the La Brea Bakery group of companies in the US.
Eircom continued to attract attention as the battle to buy the telecommunications company continues to boil.
The company's share price ended up 2.0 cents at €1.33 following the improved offer by the Denis O'Brien-led eIsland consortium for Eircom.
Elsewhere CRH traded up 17 cents to €20.20 and Smurfit ran into some profit-taking shaving 2.0 cents of its share price to €2.34.
Ryanair jumped 1.75 per cent to €11.91 as it continued its assault on new budget airline entrant Go.
The Irish no-frills flyer is setting up a new route to Edinburgh to add to its Glasgow-Prestwick route even though it did not get its usual favourable deal from Edinburgh airport. Ryanair generally flies to secondary airports near major cities to reduce costs.
Analysts said Ryanair is sitting on such a comfortable cash pile that the move will have little negative impact on profits.
