THE financials regaining some lost ground along with the leading industrials were among the main features in trading yesterday.

DCC and Flogas also saw good volumes. Earlier in the day, industrial holding company DCC said it was offering 275p a share for the minority Flogas stake. DCC already owns 77.3 per cent of Flogas stock. DCC put on 1p to 226p sterling. Flogas jumped 35p to the offer price of 275p. "It was very well bid but there were no offers," a trader said.

Among the financials, Bank of Ireland put on 2p to 444p and AIB added 3p to 343p. Irish Permanent lost 5p to close at 393p after investors sold it ahead of results next week. Irish Life gained 1p to close at 244p.

Grafton Group continued its strong performance after better than expected results on Thursday. It closed up 30p at a new high of 500p.

Independent also made gains on the day following a note from NCB Stockbrokers. It put on 10p to end at 410p.

Strong oversees buying interest continued in Greencore. It closed the week at another record high of 577p, up 2p.

Bonds had a mixed session. Traders said the market responded well to better than expected money supply figures from Germany in the morning. But "it lost all its winnings by the afternoon", one trader said. He pointed to weaker, European markets, particularly in Britain.

"Britain is really weak as ii result of the messy political situation," he said.