In a quiet day on the Irish Stock Exchange, Eircom was the star, advancing strongly with close to one million shares traded. The stock eventually finished up 13 cents at €2.92, having reached €3 at one stage on expectation of the sale of Eircell to Vodafone being completed by the end of this week.

CRH continued its upward trend, forging ahead 27 cents to €18.70. The stock had traded as low as €16 but rallied strongly on positive sentiment in the US, largely on the perception that interest rates will be cut there. Despite some strong trading in financial stocks, the big financials ended the day relatively unchanged. Bank of Ireland edged ahead two cents to €9.50 with some 1.5 million shares traded.

AIB closed unchanged at €12.56 with two million shares changing hands. Anglo Irish Bank Corporation lost nine cents to €3.06, with First Active picking up two cents to €2.20. Irish Life & Permanent picked up 12 cents and closed at €13.10.

Ryanair was off almost 2 per cent on the day, dropping 21 cents to €11.55. Also down was Green Property which lost 14 cents to €6.91.

As the Irish Stock Exchange closed, Irish tech stocks were enjoying mixed fortunes on the Nasdaq. With the Nasdaq trading down 1.16 per cent, Iona had slipped back 1.36 per cent to $68.06 1/4 and Baltimore had dropped 7.53 per cent to $10.75.

However, both Trintech and Riverdeep managed to buck the trend. Trintech had advanced 6.67 per cent to $12 and Riverdeep was up 2.56 per cent to $20.