The market had a more restful volumes expected to pick up day after last weeks frantic activity. However, dealers expect the trading volumes to pick up again later in week, in line with London and Wall Street.
A large amount of stock traded strongly in the earlier part of the day, despite the weak opening in London and there was some profit taking, but trading fell back later in the afternoon.
The performance of CRH, which started at 802p and dealt down to 796p, was not connected with the double purchase of its US subsidiary, Architectural Products Group (APG), with dealers describing the value of the deal £18.2 million as "small beer".
The market seemed equally unmoved by the early morning announcement of the IAWS takeover of Cuisine de France. No dealing in the stock occured all day.
The interims of Jones Group were as the market expected and again no shares were dealt.
The most dramatic movements came once again with the financials. At one stage in the day Bank of Ireland hit an all time high, but it dropped to 905p later in the afternoon.
Allied Irish Bank was subject to busy trading and stood at 622p in the early afternoon, although it closed at 617p. Not surprisingly, Greencore continued to lose some value, although it stablised at the end of the day and closed at 323p. Smurfit was a target for many investors, going from 238p to 240p in gradual upwards trading.
The other main movers were Clondalkin, which went from 620p to 608p, Dunloe made a marginal gain of 1/2p, Fyffes dropped 2p to close at 100p, while Irish Life closed quite strong on 365p, in trading which has been heavy for the past few weeks.
The market also heard that Norwich Union Investment Management Limited, a subsidiary of Norwich Union bought one million shares at 200p each in Sinclair Montrose Healthcare.
The bond market drifted back following last weeks bullish performance. There was a weaker tone to the trading following on repercussions from Friday's reversal in US treasuries.
The consumer price figures on Thursday are expected to inject some movement into the market, although the market expects them to be quite favourable.
