Strong gains by Elan kept the ISEQ in positive territory, but otherwise most of the leading stocks gave up a good portion of Wednesday's impressive gains while technology shares took a beating as the Nasdaq fell 1.5 per cent in the opening session.

Elan jumped #2.60 in Dublin to #63.30 while in the opening session on the NYSE - where the bulk of Elan trading takes place - the share jumped almost 5 per cent to more than $54 with dealers suggesting that, such is demand for the stock, it will soon break through its $59 high.

Elsewhere, however, it was a sea of red ink, with Eircom down 10 cents to #2.46 as telecom stocks plunged across Europe. Financials were generally lower, with AIB down five cents on #10.80, Bank of Ireland off two cents to #7.65 in trading more than 2.2 million shares while Irish Life lost 40 cents to #10.50.

Main interest in non-financials was in Horizon which placed 2.6 million shares held by Mr Samir Naji and three other directors at then overnight price of #9.50. The extra liquidity did not hurt the price as Horizon then traded up to #10,000 before closing up 50 cents on the day on #10.00. Most technology stocks were sharply lower as Nasdaq dived, with Iona, Smartforce and Riverdeep suffering the worst.

Among the industrials, CRH lost 13 cents to #18.05 while [B O]Smurfit was three cents lower in turnover of more than 2.4 million shares. DCC lost 30 cents to #9.90 albeit in tiny volumes, Fyffes fell one cent

to 93 cents while Greencore fell eight cents to #2.85. Positive reaction to the full-year results boosted IAWS 10 cents to #7.40.