Market Report: The Iseq made a decent attempt at a recovery yesterday much to the delight of traders who had seen more than €5 billion wiped off its overall value in the past week.

The positive sentiment was broad-based with most of the negative movers from the past few days putting in positive performances - a feature echoed in other European markets.

The financials all fared well, with AIB leading the way, up 80 cent, or 4.6 per cent, at €18.30.

Anglo Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland were both up 23 cent, closing at €12.08 and €14.05 respectively. Anglo, however, had a rather erratic day, with a 63 cent range between its daily high and low prices. Irish Life & Permanent ended the session up 35 cent at €18.75.

Elsewhere, Eircom was the day's big newsmaker, with the long-awaited takeover bid coming from Australian group Babcock & Brown in conjunction with the Employee Share Ownership Trust (Esot).

BCM Ireland Holdings, a company formed for the purpose of the offer, yesterday tabled a €2.4 billion bid for the Irish telecoms group. The shares rose five cent, or 2.3 per cent, to €2.20, equal to the per share offer price, though slightly below the total offer package, which includes a dividend payment. More than 17 million shares changed hands in Dublin alone.

Building and materials group CRH was another beneficiary of the market's change in fortune, gaining 75 cents, or almost 3 per cent, to close at €26.15.

Kerry and Kingspan were also among the gainers, ending the day up 35 cent and 48 cent respectively at €17.25 and €12.90.

Tullow benefited from its own positive news and the general sentiment. It said production had begun at its Schooner-10 gas well off the UK coast and that the latest results from its Ugandan drilling programme were encouraging. The shares were up 36 cent, or 7.5 per cent, at €5.13.

Despite the positive mood, C&C failed to make the grade, dropping 16 cent, or 2.5 per cent, to end at €6.20.