Building materials group CRH made strong gains on the Dublin market - boosted by an expectation that the group will be buoyed by higher spending on highway construction in the US. CRH is one of the bigger suppliers of materials for highway construction and this helped the shares to a high of #21.20 before they closed up 87 cents on #20.94. The biggest volume was in Eircom which was unchanged on #1.14 after reports in this newspaper that entrepreneur Paul Coulson may join the bidding for the group. Smurfit also traded in size on positive broker comment in the US and 3.4 million shares changed hands as the price rose 2 cents to #2.25.

Otherwise, it was generally dull with modest price changes among most of the leaders. But some second-liners made decent gains with Glanbia up 3 cents on #0.83 while Fyffes was 4 cents higher on #1.04. Independent was 7 cents higher on #2.53 despite reports of lower advertising revenues in the British newspaper industry. Technology shares were mixed with Datalex plunging 60 cents to #2.00 - albeit in volume of just 1,000 shares. Baltimore managed to regain 5-1/4p to 71-1/4p sterling despite a series of downgrades, the latest yesterday from Davy which cut its price target for the stock from £3 to £1.50 sterling.

Compared to other brokers, Davy is positively bullish about Baltimore. Cazenove has slapped a "sell" recommendation on the shares although the broker has suggested that bid speculation could provide a hedge against further losses. Cazenove specifically listed Microsoft, Computer Associates and IBM as potential predators. Merrill Lynch has cut its recommendation on Baltimore from "buy" to neutral while Old Mutual has cuts its recommendation from "hold" to "reduce".