Market Report: The market failed to take off yesterday, with weakness among the larger stocks again holding back overall performance, writes Una McCaffrey.

The banks were out of favour, with Bank of Ireland in particular suffering for the second day in a row. Shares in the bank, which has lost four key members of its asset management team, shed 10 cents to finish at €11.02.

Goodbody has cuts its price target on the bank by 1.4 per cent to €13.00 in the wake of Thursday's pre-close statement.

AIB also felt some pressure as it dropped three cents to finish at €13.57.

Anglo Irish Bank, however, rose 12 cents to €14.95, while Irish Life & Permanent added five cents to €12.75.

IAWS failed to win credit for its solid full-year numbers as shares fell back by 13 cents to €10.25. NCB has raised its 2005 earnings estimates on the stock by 4.4 per cent to 70 cents.

Donegal Creameries, which posted weaker profits on Thursday, dropped 10 cents to €4.10.

Renewed concerns over high oil prices did little for Ryanair, which shed one cent to close at €4.08.

CRH also lost ground, falling 17 cents to €19.41 on light volume.

Elan strengthened in advance of presenting research data on Crohn's Disease to a conference on Wednesday. Shares in the firm added 22 cents to finish at €19.10.

Sectoral bedfellow Warner Chilcott shed 3p to close at 775.5p in London, thus halting its progress towards the 800p indicative approach highlighted at the start of the week.

Business was slow elsewhere, with most stocks struggling to achieve even low volumes.

Waterford Wedgwood was an exception, with 1.5 million shares changing hands. The firm failed to make headway on the price front however, closing unchanged at 13 cents.

Outperformers on the day included Kingspan, which rose by six cents to €5.71 and Readymix, which added two cents to finish at €1.55.

Settlement Day: September 29th