IN&M surges 9% on heavy trading

Dublin report:A quiet morning on the Irish Stock Exchange gave way to a busier afternoon yesterday as better than expected payroll data from the US led to a flurry of trading activity across the world from lunchtime onwards.

Markets responded well to the figures and the Iseq was no exception. It finished the day up a modest but healthy 67 points, a rise of 0.8 per cent.

Independent News & Media posted the highest rise of the day, shooting up almost 9 per cent from €2.80 to a closing price of €3.05, with the company buying up more of its own shares for the second day in a row. A total of 2.7 million shares traded in the media stock.

Positive news on passenger numbers in the airline sector helped Ryanair's share price fly high. It climbed 1.5 per cent, adding 8 cent to close at €5.50, while Aer Lingus, one of the airlines to publish traffic data yesterday, added 2 cent to close at €2.37. The financial stocks had, for the most part, a positive afternoon's trading, with Bank of Ireland making a strong surge toward the finish to close up 3 per cent at €13.93, a climb of 41 cent on volume of 3.5 million.

AIB added 14 cent and Irish Life & Permanent helped itself to a 12 cent price rise, but the exception to the trend was at Anglo Irish Bank, which fell 1.6 per cent to €13.99, a drop of 23 cent on volume of 3.2 million.

Elsewhere, there was very little stock-specific news, but among the performers was C&C, which rose 2.8 per cent ahead of its interim results next week.

On the IEX market for small firms, it was a strong day for security and recruitment firm Newcourt, which climbed 10 cent to €1.48. Among the fallers yesterday were food group IAWS, construction group McInerney and industrial support services group DCC.