The Irish stock market's leap into the 21st century, with the introduction of electronic trading, turned into something of a damp squib as nervous dealers held back from trading in size on the new Xetra platform. "People were just a bit nervous on the first day, but there were no glitches with the system and volumes will increase gradually," commented one dealer.

Dealers can now get used to the novelty of getting real-time trading volumes, compared to the 24-hour delay they are accustomed to. But an indication of the first day's sluggish dealing was the total of Eircom shares traded - just two million. Bank of Ireland was the next most active, with just over one million shares.

Price changes were negligible in most cases, although Irish Life & Permanent jumped 56 cents to €9.01 after hitting an earlier high of €9.20. Bank of Ireland gained 19 cents to €6.89, while AIB eased one cent to €8.49.

Among the industrials, Eircom gained 4 cents to €3.14 after hitting €3.20 in earlier trading. CRH was 15 cents firmer on €19.90, while Kerry took a sudden 65-cent dive to €13.10, although the volume behind that slump was negligible - no more than 105,000 shares. Arnotts gained 20 cents to €6.90 as the group disclosed that it had bought back almost 326,000 shares last Friday at €6.70. Three Arnotts directors - Michael O'Connor, Brian Davy and Richard Nesbitt - were also in the market, each buying 35,000 shares at the €6.70 price.

Among the technology shares, Baltimore's three-month membership of the FTSE 100 will come to an end tomorrow, the shares having failed to gain enough to preserve the company's much-cherished status. Baltimore was just 6p higher on £5.71 sterling, while Trintech was down 90 cents on €27.00.