The market pushed ahead stead ily despite the near 1 per cent fall in London and an indifferent opening session on Wall Street. After yesterday's gain, the ISEQ has risen 14 per cent over the past two weeks and is well off the 1998 low of 3732 for the ISEQ.

The short-term prospects for the market seem positive with strong demand for the financials and the better-quality industrials.

First Active continues to move ahead after its flotation and was 8p higher on 318p. The share is now nearly £1 above its flotation price of 225p, giving further ammunition to those who believe that this flotation was badly under-priced. A premium of more than 41 per cent over three weeks is excessive.

Elsewhere, Bank of Ireland was 25p higher on £12.05, Anglo Irish gained 3p to 158p, Irish Life added 20p to 540p and Irish Permanent was 2p higher on 902p. AIB was the only financial to fall, down 3p on the day to 957p.

Industrials were generally firmer with CRH up 20p on 895p while Smurfit gained 7p to 110p after JS Corp turned in third quarter figures in line with forecasts. JS Corp, however, was trading almost $1/2 lower on Nasdaq last night on $125/8. DCC gained 5p to 380p - Scottish Provident sold 500,000 shares on Tuesday to bring its stake to under four million shares or 4.58 per cent.

Tullow was drawing bids around 84-85p as it emerged that M&G was a recent buyer of the shares, picking up nearly four million shares to bring its stake to close on 14 per cent.

Fyffes was 5p higher on 120p, Greencore gained strength from an oversold position down at 220p and was 10p higher on 275p while IAWS was 5p higher on 240p.