GILT prices rose strongly on the market yesterday in line with the gains on international markets, although they underperformed against German and British bonds.
The market still remains focused on the pound's upward movement against the deutschmark and the downward movement against sterling.
The farther out the yield curve, the greater the gains, and five-year gilts rose 50p to close on a yield of 6.21 per cent while 10-year gilts closed up 80p on a yield of 6.8 per cent.
Some attention will also be focused on tomorrow's bank and mortgagelending from the Central Bank, but with one-month money still below 5 3/4 per cent on the money market it will take an extraordinarily poor set of figures for the Central Bank to raise interest rates once again.
The equity market was tedious with few price changes of any consequences and no corporate news of any significance. The best performer was once again Irish Life which jumped 4p to a new high of 273p. Other financials were inactive with AIB and Bank of Ireland unchanged on 393p and 509p respectively.
Among the industrials, CRH gained 1p to 637, Smurfit was 1p easier on 168p, while Greencore recovered from some early weakness when it hit 354p to close up 1p on the day on 358 1/2p. IAWS fell 10p to 165p, although the shares are well-bid at that closing level.
Independent had a volatile day, initially trading up slightly from its overnight 330p before closing down 10p on 320p. Navan and Celtic were not affected by acquisition announcements while Tullow closed weaker once again on 78p.
