The market remained out of sorts with little stimulus coming from an anaemic performance in London and a weaker opening in New York. With Nasdaq trading higher, technology shares remained in demand and most Irish stocks on Nasdaq were trading higher as the market closed.
Leading financial and industrial shares were mixed. AIB finally found some support and regained 11 cents to €9.87 but otherwise prices were lower with Bank of Ireland down 15 cents on €7.00. Profit-taking continued to afflict CRH and the shares were down another 50 cents to €19.50, bringing the losses since the January 12th high to €2.30 or almost 11 per cent.
Elsewhere, Eircom eased back three cents to €4.20, Independent fell back 12 1/2 cents to €7.87 1/2 while Smurfit was unchanged on €3.15. Horizon - one of the few technology shares with a primary Dublin listing - soared again and closed 40 cents on a new high of €6.30. Fyffes was unchanged but well-bid on €2.60 while Greencore was two cents firmer on €2.87 as news is awaited on the Perkins Foods bid. Gainers in the exploration sector included Celtic Resources - up six cents to 23 cents and Bula - up half a cent to 10 1/2 cents.
Highlight of the Nasdaq trading was the continued strong performance by Trinity Biotech after the FDA gave its approval for its Macra system for testing for lipoprotein A -, a factor in coronary heart disease. Trinity was trading $3/8 higher at over $3 1/4 as the Irish market closed, up $1 on the start of the week and double the share's level at the start of the year.
Iona continued to forge ahead on the back of its link-up with Compaq and good results and was trading $2 1/4 higher on $56 1/8 while Trintech's strong run continued and the share was up almost $5 on $61 as Dublin wound up proceedings.
