After the turbulence of the past few days on international markets, the Dublin market returned to its dreary old ways with low turnover (not a single stock traded over a million shares) and modest price movements the order of the day. Still, with the Dow and Nasdaq well up as the Irish market closed the short-term prospects for the home market are positive.
Best performer was Ryanair which jumped 13 cents to a new high of €10.25. News that two directors - Mr Cathal and Mr Declan Ryan - had each sold 1.17 million shares at €9.80 on Monday came after the market closed. The share sales are unlikely to have much impact on the share price.
Among the financials, AIB was six cents easier on €13.02 as US investment house Capital disclosed that it now has a 6.03 per cent stake. Bank of Ireland was unchanged on €8.92 while First Active jumped seven cents to €2.17 and was in the distinctly unusual position of being the best performing financial on the day.
A shortage of hard news left Eircom five cents lower on €3.25 while market debutante Datalex recovered 15 cents to its flotation price of €6.80 after good third quarter results. Barlo drifted two cents to 96 cents after announcing an acquisition in Slovakia.
The best performers among the various technology shares were Iona - which was trading up more than $4-1/2 on Nasdaq on $69-1/2 in midday trading, while Parthus continued to recover. Parthus closed 14p higher in London on 197-1/2p sterling and was trading $2-3/4 higher on $29 in midday Nasdaq trading.
