THE Dublin market was fairly quiet yesterday, with dealers reporting relatively thin trading throughout the day. Most shares turned marginally weaker in sympathy with lower prices on Wall Street.
The leading financial stocks lost ground, with AIB down a penny to 388p, while Bank of Ireland lost ground ending the day 3p off on 509p.
Other financials faired somewhat better though with Irish Life unchanged at 273p and Irish Permanent holding onto levels of 485p during trading. Anglo Irish and Woodchester were also both unchanged closing at 71p and 210p respectively.
The main industrials suffered similar setbacks, with CRH off 5p at 600p while Smurfit dropped 2p to 164p. Kerry however managed to claw back some of this week's losses moving up 5p to 600p on the day. The group's shares dived sharply lower after its brokers downgraded its earnings forecasts for 1997.
Among the second liners United Drug fell 14p to 340p, IAWS dropped 7 1/2p while Hibernian slipped 10p to 275p.
In other company news Kingspan said it was going to raise over £20 million in a rights issue to fund the £25.9 million acquisition of Ward Building Systems in Britain.
Irish bonds were also weaker yesterday in line with a weaker tone across Europe. The 6.5 per cent bond due in 2001 slipped 40p from its previous closing levels to £100.55 to yield 6.25 per cent. The 8 per cent bond due in 2006 eased 55p to £107.40 to yield 6.8 per cent.
Most dealers expect activity in the markets to taper off gradually over then next few days, settling into holiday mode.
