Wall Street's strong opening session in the wake of the link-up between Dell and IBM failed to have much impact in Dublin, where share prices drifted in small volumes.
There seems to be a feeling among fund managers that it makes sense to wait and see where Wall Street moves from here before returning to the Irish market.
The leaders were, as usual, mixed, with AIB up two cents on €15.60 (£12.29), while Bank of Ireland gained 15 cents to €18.20 (£14.33). With the results out of the way and with the shares trading at a sizeable premium to the sector, CRH is going through a period of drift and the shares edged down eight cents to €16.52 (£13.01).
The only corporate news came from Athlone Extrusions in the form of a profits warning - and this drove the share down 15 cents to €0.70 (55p) - a long way from the 91p flotation price of a year ago. Arcon fell another two cents to €0.18 (14p), while Iona fell €1.80 to €33.95 (£26.74), although this is simply a catch-up on recent movements in the Iona share price on Nasdaq. One reason the share price took a fall was because Iona's Dutch rival - Baan - reported heavy losses earlier this week and was circumspect about growth in the middle-ware market. Smurfit was 21/2 cents lower on €1.851/2 (£1.46).
On Nasdaq, the main price movement involving an Irish stock was a jump of $31/4 by Icon to $31 (€28.60), reversing some of the losses of the past week. Dealers saw no obvious reason for the fall in the Icon share. Esat was trading almost $11/2 lower around $431/2 (€40.18) as the Irish market closed, while Saville continued to suffer from recent downgrades and was trading over 31 cents lower at $16.62 (€15.35).
