After a strong opening, Irish share prices lost a good portion of their gains in later trading, as Wall Street failed to make any great progress after the record rise on Tuesday. Investors seemed content to adopt a wait-and-see approach ahead of the next big figure for the market - tomorrow's non-farm payroll figures. The purchasing manager figures gave Wall Street the spark for its record rise on Tuesday - if the non-farm figures show a slowdown in the US economy, it may give Wall Street further impetus. Any sizeable increase over the 65,000 median forecast may, however, have the reverse effect.

The latest batch of corporate results continued the trend of good first-half performances by Irish companies, and the Smurfit figures in particular gave the shares a strong boost.

The lower-than-expected fall in first half profits gave the shares a boost, but it was more the bullish trading comments from Dr Michael Smurfit that pleased the market. In Dublin, Smurfit hit a high of 230p before closing up 4p on the day on 226p, while in London the shares were up 9p to 215p sterling.

Waterford Wedgwood figures were in line with forecast but the shares drifted lower to close down 1p on 91p after hitting 94p in earlier trading. Strong overseas demand after its excellent results drove CRH up 10p to 752p, Kerry reached another new high with a 5p gain to 725p, while Kingspan remained well-bid at its new high of 1100p.

Among the financials, AIB was 21/2 p higher on 573p, Bank of Ireland was 2p higher on 772p, Irish Life gained 2p to 340p, although Irish Permanent drifted 5p lower to 630p.