MARKET REPORT:LATE AFTERNOON selling pared back most of the gains made by the Iseq earlier in the day but the Dublin market still managed to close marginally stronger, adding five points to 6,429.23.

A decline in bank stocks late in the session took some of the shine off the index, although volumes were generally light across the board with little newsflow on the day.

With financials weak elsewhere, Anglo Irish Bank shed 15 cent to €9.35, while Bank of Ireland was about 0.5 per cent weaker at €8.69, with 2.7 million shares traded. AIB slipped back five cent to €13.66. FBD was also weaker, losing 14 cent to €26.85. Irish Life Permanent bucked the trend among the financial stocks, however, adding 18 cent to €11.47.

Elsewhere, Fyffes, which was aggressively sold off in afternoon trading on Thursday, recovered some ground yesterday. It was two cent stronger at €0.85, although volumes were quite thin, with 400,000 shares changing hands.

A number of construction stocks enjoyed a positive day's trading. Market heavyweight CRH attracted a few buyers and the stock closed up 78 cent at €24.38, but again the number of shares traded was low. McInerney also advanced and was more than 3 per cent stronger at €0.97. However, Kingspan eased back one cent to €7.84.

There was some interest in DCC ahead of its full-year results next Monday and it picked up five cent to end at €15.10, while Greencore, which had been under pressure earlier in the week on the back of peer reports, also attracted a few buyers and tacked on two cent to close at €3.50.

Smurfit was one of the poorer performers, with the stock falling more than 3 per cent to €7.45, while Paddy Power gave up some of the previous day's gains as it eased back five cent to €24.20 with volumes of almost 600,000.

Settlement date: May 21st