THE Irish equity market failed to follow the lead set by Wall Street, London and Paris and share prices only nudged ahead. Whether the market will respond to the apparent surge by Wall Street after the Irish market closed or whether it will gradually wind down for the Christmas break will become clear this morning.
Bank of Ireland saw most of the volume among the financials but still eased back 2p to 518p while AIB was 2p easier on 383p. The $163 million acquisition in the US by Irish Life was broadly welcomed as a solid earnings-enhancing move and the share pushed ahead 2p to 271p while Woodchester added 6p to 215p albeit in very small volume.
Anglo Irish Bank was unchanged on 71p as M&G disclosed that it bought 300,000 shares last Monday to take its stake to 9.09 per cent.
Among the industrials, both Smurfit and CRH drifted lower although Greencore remained firmly-bid and closed up 2p on 372p.
Independent was unchanged on 300p as sources close to the group dismissed reports that Independent was planning a £60 million buyout of Mirror's 46 per cent stake in the London Independent publisher, Newspaper Publishing.
Irish Continental continued its poor run and fell 25p in late trading to 415p, its lowest level for well over a year. Among the explorers, the only movement of note was a 1 1/2p gain to 34p by Arcon. Waterford Wedgwood was a lp firmer on 74 1/2p with the market also welcoming the investment in Rosenthal.
Gilts moved marginally higher in thin afternoon trade as US treasury bonds benefited from some good economic indicators. Five-year gilts were 11p higher on a closing yield of 6.07 per cent while 10s gained 20p to close on a yield of 6.65 per cent.