The Irish market continued to wend its way tediously downward, with volumes getting lower and lower ahead of the holiday closedown. The only action in Irish-connected stocks was once again off the Irish market, with e-commerce stocks Trintech and Baltimore strong once again.
Baltimore hit a new high in London when it surged £5.95 to £46.62, and those gains were matched on the Nasdaq index, where the shares were trading $7 higher on $73 as European markets closed. Trintech has been hit by profit-taking in recent trading, but the shares rebounded yesterday and dealt up €2.10 to €45.10 on the Neuer Markt and were trading $2 3/8 higher at $45 3/8 on the Nasdaq as Dublin closed.
The collapse of the Telia/Telenor merger focused attention on Eircom, where Telia has signalled that it plans to offload its 14 per cent shareholding. Eircom shares, which have strengthened in the past couple of days, drifted 14 cents lower to $4.10 (£3.23) in thin trading. Esat shares traded around their overnight level of $78 on Nasdaq, with the market expecting Telenor to go ahead with a solo bid.
AIB recovered some of its recent losses with a 25-cent gain to €11.30 (£8.90), but overall the financial sector is still out of favour. Bank of Ireland was down 11 cents on €8.04 (£6.33), while First Active drifted 5 cents lower to a new low of €2.05 (£1.61).
CRH was 30 cents higher on €20.00 (£15.25) from an over-sold position, while some second-liners notched up sizeable thin-volume gains. Golden Vale was 4 cents higher on €1.14 (£0.90) and is up 14 per cent on the week, ITG gained 9 cents to €8.50 (£6.69) and Ardagh added 10 cents to €1.70 (£1.34). Profit-taking after recent solid gains dragged Smurfit down 2 cents to €2.98 (£2.35).
