The Irish stock market continued to edge ahead in thin trading and shook off the early weakness on Wall Street to close another half per cent higher.
Profit-taking took the market off its best levels after the ISEQ reached 4287, but dealers said that the market's tone was positive with speculation on interest rate cuts the main spur.
The main corporate news was the third-quarter results and $16 million (£10.5 million) investment in Ethical Holdings by Elan. The Elan figures were bang in line with expectations, but Warburg Dillion Read has still trimmed its forecasts for the next three years to reflect expected filing and approval delays for a number of key products. Warburg is now forecasting 1999 earnings per share of $2.41 (down from $2.45), $3.05 in 2000 (down from $3.24) and $3.82 in 2001 (down from $3.96). Warburg has, however, repeated its strong buy rating for Elan shares which were trading almost $1 higher last night on $671/2. In Dublin, Elan put on £3.10 to £45.10.
Among the financial shares, First Active continued to motor ahead
and added another 4p to a 322p post-flotation high. Other financials were mixed with AIB 7p easier on 950p while Bank of Ireland gained 5p to £12.10. Anglo Irish was 2p higher on 160p, Irish Life was up 1p on 540p, while Irish Permanent drifted 2p to 900p.
Smurfit continued to be the busiest of the industrial shares and dealt as high as 112p before closing fractionally easier on the day on 1101/2p. The share has been given a boost by a detailed Goodbody report which suggests that the shares have been heavily oversold.
Smurfit's fall in recent months has been far greater than the sector average, and this suggests that the main reason for the fall is unique to Smurfit - doubts over the merger between JS Corp and Stone Container. For better or worse, the merger is effectively a done deal on the original terms and at some stage the market will have to put greater emphasis on the prospects for the merged company and not the terms of the deal, however disadvantageous they might be to Smurfit and advantageous to Stone.
CRH was almost 3p down on 889p, DCC lost 10p to 37 0p, while Fyffes was 5p easier on 115p as it emerged that the banana wars between the EU and the US may erupt once again with the Americans accusing the EU of breaking the WTO settlement of the quotas dispute. Dragon Oil was unchanged on 22p as it emerged that Capital Group sold 250,000 shares on Wednesday at 20p sterling, taking its stake down to 1.78 per cent.
Tullow was 7p higher on 85p in thin trading amid reports that an announcement of its long-delayed Bangladesh licences may be made on Monday. At 85p the shares have fully recovered from the recent panic selling and should push ahead if the licences are confirmed.
Ovoca Gold was 6p higher at 18p on positive comments at its annual meeting about its exploration programme.
