Eircom shares fell yesterday following confirmation that Vodafone had bought its mobile phone operator Eircell in a €4.5 billion deal, a figure lower that the predicted €4.6 billion to €5 billion range.

The stock ended the day down 15 cents to €2.70, a fall of just over 5 per cent, with more than 600,000 shares changing hands on the Dublin market.

There was decent trading in financial stocks, with the two big banks gaining on the day. Bank of Ireland advanced 49 cents to €9.99, while AIB was 10 cents stronger on €12.40.

Smurfit picked up four cents on the news of its acquisition of 25 per cent of Hong Kong company Leefung-Asco Printers Holdings. The stock closed at €2. Print and packaging company Oakhill picked up one cent on the news that shareholders had agreed to the planned sale of its packaging business.

CRH rebounded to €18.91, an increase of 36 cents on the day. Other companies which improved on the day included IAWS which gained 15 cents to €7.20, Irish Continental Group which advanced 15 cents to €6.45, Kingspan which picked up 10 cents to €3.90 and United Drug which was up 15 cents to close at €10.90.

Dropping back were Grafton, which lost 10 cents to €22.90, Irish Life & Permanent, also down 10 cents to €13.20 and Rapid Technology, which lost 75 cents to €1.05.

As the Irish market closed, the Nasdaq had rebounded somewhat from its big drop of the previous day. It was up 2.86 per cent and this was reflected in the Irish stocks which were trading up.

Baltimore was performing well, up 7.89 per cent to $10.25. Iona had gained 4.49 per cent to $59.62-1/2, while Trintech had advanced 2.86 per cent to $11.25. Riverdeep was unchanged at 19.37 1/2.