Trading remained subdued on the Dublin market ahead of the European Central Bank's meeting on interest rates and the Microsoft antitrust ruling. Price changes were negligible and turnover was low, apart from some chunky dealing in Bank of Ireland and Fyffes.
The other highlight was the continued demand for Ryan, even though the company said it has received no bid approaches and is not involved in any negotiations on a bid. Still, the market believes that a bid is now almost a certainty and the only question is whether it will come from Red Sea, the McEniff brothers or a combination of the two. Ryan shares dealt up to a high of €1.30 before closing five cents higher on €1.20, with just over 260,000 shares trading.
Fyffes traded up nine cents to €1.65 on turnover of three million with some taking the view that the shares have been oversold after the profits warning. The only size was in Bank of Ireland which closed 21 cents higher on €7.10 on volume of 3.5 million shares while Irish Life continued its strong improvement and dealt up 17 cents to €9.18.
Among the industrials CRH lost 40 cents to €19.50, Kerry was 35 cents higher on €13.45 after Tuesday's heavy fall, while Ryanair was eight cents firmer on €8.80 on the back of an "outperform" tag from DLJ and a positive reaction to the proposed BA/KLM merger.
Technology shares were generally lower, with recent star Parthus coming in for some heavy-duty profit-taking. Parthus lost 14 cents to £2.01 in London and by midday on Nasdaq was almost $4 3/4 lower at just above $30.
