Continued heavy demand for the leaders and a growing shortage of stock as domestic investors hold off on selling saw the Irish market notch up its third successive big gain, leaving the market within striking distance of the ISEQ 5,000 mark.

But most of the leaders came off their best levels in later trading, suggesting that this recovery will probably be punctuated by profit-taking by those investors who bought into the weakness of the past few weeks. The only leading stock not to come off an earlier high was AIB which closed up 54 cents on €13.70 (£10.79).

Bank of Ireland hit a high of €9.15 (£7.21) before closing up 11 cents on €8.90 (£7.01) while CRH - getting a continuing boost from the National Development Plan's building proposals - jumped to a high of €20.00 (£15.75) before ending 82 cents higher on €19.42 (£15.29). Eircom was unchanged on €4.30 (£3.39) ahead of today's results, but hit a high of €4.44 (£3.50) in early trading. Eircom is unlikely to include any surprises in the interim figures, but anything above analysts' forecasts will probably trigger renewed buying.

There were some signs of life among some of the second-liners, with Greencore five cents firmer on €2.45 (£1.93) ahead of full-year results in the next few weeks, while Green was 7.5 cents higher on €5.77 1/2 (£4.54).

Fidelity has disclosed that its stake in Esat has risen from 10.5 per cent to 13.1 per cent after buying 1.15 million shares. The share was trading marginally higher on $57 1/2 as the Irish market closed last night.

Iona, however, was hit by profit-taking after the recent gains and was trading $2 1/2 lower on $31, but Baltimore continues to power ahead and was $2 1/4 higher at the Irish close on $46 3/4.