THE Dublin market shrugged off the sharp fall in London and the renewed weakness on Wall Street and pushed prices up by half of 1 per cent, although turnover was relatively modest. By the time the Dublin market closed, Wall Street had fallen 44 points as investors focused on long bond yields hovering above 7 per cent.

The main financial shares regained some of their recent losses and both AIB and Bank of Ireland were 4p higher on 334p and 450p respectively. There was little reaction to the latest bolt on acquisitions by CRH and the share closed up a penny on 574p. Smurfit was not affected by the Wall Street weakness and closed 2p higher on 175p, even though JS Corp was 25 cents lower on

Secondliners were reasonably firm and Kerry hit 600p before closing up 3p on the day on 598p, despite trading less the 2.3p final dividend. DCC was steady on 245p ahead of today's full year results, IAWS was 1p easier but well supported on 153p alter the announcement of the plans to take the co-op stake down to 45 per cent and Woodchester was 3p firmer on 188p.

Both Arcon and Ivernia regained ground after the sale of the Outokumpu shares late on day night. Arcon was 5p higher on 32p, 5p higher than the sale price of the Outokumpu shares leading to suggestions in some quarters that the Finns could have got substantially more than 27p for each of its 12.4 million shares.

Likewise, Ivernia was stronger and closed up 41/2p on 80p 5p ahead of the Outokumpu sale price. With 24.5 per cent of its shares now held by Irish and over seas institutions, Ivemia can feel happy with the outcome as it represents a vote of confidence in the company from institutions.