Market Report: The stock market gave up ground yesterday, hit by some profit-taking and a drop in the Bank of Ireland share price as the stock went ex-dividend.

Settlement Date: June 23rd

Shares in the bank, which was reported to again be buying back its own shares, closed 38 cents lower at €10.67.

AIB had a less eventful day, finishing unchanged at 13.27 while Anglo Irish Bank slipped by five cents to 8.05.

Dealers said the market also felt the impact of a decent-sized sell programme by one British broker, which put pressure on some of the larger stocks.

Programme-selling also affected some mid-cap stocks such as DCC, which closed 39 cents lower at 11.30, and Grafton, off 20 cents to 3.90, the dealers said.

CRH lost 15 cents to 14.20 but remained above 14.00, helped by the recent robust set of May housing statistics from the US, which showed both starts and permits ahead of expectation.

Elan, which terminated another joint venture with Cambridge-based pharmaceutical group CeNeS, closed 40 cents higher at 6.80.

Among secondline stocks, there was above-average trading in IFG, with more than 1.7 million shares changing hands as the stock added three cents to 0.63. NCB revised its forecasts for the group and is now looking for earnings per share of 13 cents this year, implying modest growth in the group's core business in 2003.

Shares in McInerney were up by three cents to €2.98 as Bank of Ireland Asset Management said it had raised its stake in the company to 17.2 per cent. This follows the purchase of a further 650,000 shares in the homebuilder or 1.99 per cent of its share capital.