Sluggish trading fails to ignite market

Market reportInvestors were too busy nursing their festive headaches and bloated bellies to come out and trade in great numbers yesterday.

The trickle of activity that did threaten to wake the sleepy Iseq index of Irish shares out of its slumber helped the market rise by 51 points, up 0.75 per cent, with just one day of trading left in the year.

The only stock to push past the one million mark in terms of shares traded was Anglo Irish Bank, which managed to climb more than 4 per cent to €10.94, a rise of 44 cent.

AIB closed up 1.1 per cent at €15.63, up 17 cent, while Bank of Ireland added 8 cent to finish at €10.23.

Among the other major stocks, building materials group CRH fell 1.2 per cent to €23.70, down 29 cent.

Most of the main stocks posted modest gains on the day, including the building-related stocks Kingspan and Grafton, while builders McInerney posted a 10 per cent climb to €1.39, but volumes were light across the board.

There was no significant news flow on the market, however Waterford Wedgwood announced that it had secured an investment of €50 million from Corporate Partners, a New York-based private equity fund, that it will use to support its new business initiatives and fund its cost-cutting programme.

Waterford Wedgwood moved up 20 per cent, still just a fraction of a cent, to €0.02, with 367,000 shares changing hands.

The other announcement of the day was from newly IEX-listed company Merrion Pharmaceuticals, a spin-off of Elan,

Merrion Pharmaceuticals commenced unconditional trading on the IEX on December 18th. Elan fell 6 cent to €14.97.