Just as a big rise by Elan was responsible for previous sharp rises in the ISEQ index, a hefty fall in Elan shares on Dublin and New York was the main reason for the one per cent fall in the index yesterday. Otherwise it was a generally positive day apart from some continued profit-taking in AIB.

Elan was €4.33 lower on €75.67 (£59.59) in Dublin and was also trading over $1 lower on NASDAQ. But the overall impression is that Elan will rebound once again when the profit-takers finish their business. Some analysts on Wall Street are putting a medium-term target of $100 on Elan shares, compared to the current level around $83.

The other big faller was AIB which dealt down another 35 cents to €15.10 (£11.89) and the shares are a long way off the €18.10 (£14.25) high at the height of the takeover speculation of earlier in the year. Bank of Ireland was unchanged on €18.30.

Among the industrials, CRH soared 50 cents to a new €17.00 (£13.39) all-time high with heavy demand in London also driving the shares up 27p to a £11.45 sterling (€16.99) high. Fyffes was 3 cents lower on €2.25 (£1.77) as the company disclosed that it has bought in another 200,000 shares at €2.28 (£1.80).

Glanbia was 8 cents higher on €2.45 (£1.93) ahead of results next Monday, IAWS was 25 cents higher on €4.00 (£3.15) after bumper half-year figures and a positive report from ABN-AMRO while Kerry continued to benefit from its own bumper full-year figures and dealt up 15 cents to €1.230 (£9.69).

Ryanair, however, eased back 13 cents to €7.02 (£5.53) while Waterford Wedgwood continue to suffer from its flat results and was 2 cents lower on €0.68 (£0.54).