The latest collapse in the Hong Kong market and a weak opening session on Wall Street failed to prevent the Irish market bucking the trend, pushing ahead to a new closing high, with dealers reporting good buying interest from both domestic and overseas investors.
The demand for stock extended beyond the leaders yesterday, with sizeable rises for some of the better-quality second leaders.
"It's an Irish story at the moment," one dealer said. "We've had six domestic companies all report better than expected results in recent weeks and that has sharpened the appetite for stock."
Price changes for the leaders were less impressive than in some of the earlier trading this year, with AIB up over 5p on 736p while Bank of Ireland added just a halfpenny to £11.30 1/2. CRH had something of an up-and-down day before closing up 5p on 885p while Smurfit was unchanged on 203p after seven deals. Among the second-liners, Independent - which is bringing analysts on a two-week trip around its South African, Australian and New Zealand
operations - was 15p higher and wellbid on 465p. But Ryanair slipped 2p to 363p while Crean rose 4p to 161p.
Two special situation stocks - Greencore and Kerry - were both firmer. Greencore reached a high of 375p before closing up 3p on the day on 370p as acquisition news is awaited with some eagerness. Likewise, Kerry - another potential acquisition stock - added 9p to 772p. Still in the food sector, Golden Vale continued its extraordinary 1998 run and added another 5p to 105p, bringing its gains since the end of 1997 to 24p. Avonmore Waterford was also firmer, closing up 10p on 267p.
Re-rated Fyffes continued to trade in size and closed unchanged at its 138p high.
Hibernian shook off worries over the extent of storm damage claims and gained 25p to 555p while Norwich Union pushed up 6p to 476p.
Jurys continued to benefit from positive reaction to its half-year results with a 20p gain to 500p and Waterford Wedgwood gained 3p to 103p after five deals. Irish Permanent was 5p higher on 780p but Anglo Irish went against the trend and lost 4p to 145p. Anglo, however, is seen as a strong "buy on weakness" share.
Irish Continental jumped 50p to a new 950p high as management did the round of institutions following this week's bumper full-year results. The shipping group announced pre-tax profits of £14.5 million in the year to the end of October, a 37.9 per cent increase on the previous year. Earnings per share increased by 26.9 per cent, from 44.2p to 56.1p.
Goodbody has hiked up its 1998 profits forecast for ICG from £16.4 million to £17 million and the earnings forecast from 62.8p to 65p.
Dunloe House - whose takeover target Ewart reports half-year results today - gained 2p to 25p while Ewart itself remained firmly bid on 85p, well above the Dunloe offer price.
