The rebound in technology stocks was the dominant feature of the Irish market yesterday, although there were some good gains in selected industrials, with CRH performing strongly ahead of half-year results on Tuesday.

Although some of the steam went out of technology shares when profit-takers began selling in the afternoon session, Parthus and Baltimore both closed well ahead in London. The former was 24p higher

on £3.45 after peaking at £3.70 and the latter reached £9.70 before closing 14p higher on £9.01. Baltimore now seems set to rejoin the FTSE-100 when the index is revised on Wednesday.

On the home market, ITG was the biggest gainer with a €1.80 jump to €11.40, Riverdeep was up 85 cents on €4.50 and Horizon jumped 51 cents to €10.41.

Of the mainstream Irish stocks, CRH got a boost ahead of its interim results, gaining 53 cents to €19.35. CRH has in recent times been stuck in a trading range, but yesterday's jump may indicate that the stock is about to break out of that range.

Bank shares were slightly firmer, with AIB up 12 cents on €9.43 and Bank of Ireland up eight cents on €6.73.

First Active, which jumped on Thursday after news of the sale of a 60 per cent chunk of its British mortgage business, gave up most of those gains and was down 13 cents on €1.88.

Eircom recovered a little ground, closing nine cents higher on €2.46, as telecom stocks generally got a boost. Kerry closed up five cents on a new high of €15.10.