Strong gains by Smurfit, continued weakness for Elan and small-volume profit-taking were the main features of the Dublin market yesterday. Once again, a fall of almost €2 by Elan distorted the real scale of the weakness in stock prices and overall shares were down only marginally on their overnight level.

With Smurfit Stone now almost back to the $22 (€20.52) high of a year ago in the immediate wake of the merger announcement, Smurfit remained firmly bid on expectations that 1999 will be an altogether better year for linerboard pricing and the shares dealt up 4 cents to €2.34 (£1.84).

Smurfit is still, however, well shy of its €3.52 high of a year ago and the shares are severely lagging the recovery of Smurfit Stone, where Smurfit owns a 33 per cent stake. Most Dublin analysts believe that there is considerable upside in the Smurfit share and see €2.50 (£1.97) as a short-term target with €3.00 (£2.36) a target for the end of the year.

Ryanair is the other stock in favour at present and jumped another 27 cents to a new high of €8.70 (£6.85). Hibernian - a stock that has been boosted to record levels by takeover talk that has dragged on for months - was hit by a sharp burst of profit-taking and fell 75 cents to €7.85 (£6.18). Greencore was steady on €3.40 (£2.68) with the recent selling by Putnam now thought to be largely complete.

Elsewhere, bank shares drifted lower with AIB off 30 cents on €15.65 (£12.33), Bank of Ireland 25 cents lower on €19.00 (£14.96) although Anglo Irish gained 7 cents to €2.78 (£2.19). Profit-taking knocked 5 cents off CRH to €17.35 (£13.66) even though Merrill Lynch has identified CRH as one of the main beneficiaries in its sector of the recent rate cut by the European Central Bank.

The link-up with Global One gave Esat shares a boost on Nasdaq and they were trading $1 1/4 higher on almost $41 as the Dublin market closed.