With no corporate news of note and little stimulus coming from an anaemic overseas market, Irish stocks struggled to make progress in thin trading. Most attention was focused on a clutch of Irish economic figures due for release today and the US Fed's Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting today and tomorrow.

The exchequer borrowing and national income/expenditure figures are not expected to have any major impact on bond or equity markets unless there is a substantial deviation from the forecasts in the market. Any such deviation is seen as highly unlikely, although forecasts for the exchequer borrowing vary in a wide band from £275 million to £395 million.

Among the leading stocks, CRII was 1p firmer on 631p after Friday's very heavy trading when over 2.2 million shares adjusted for double counting changed hands. Smurfit was unchanged on 169p while among the banks, AIB added 2p to 330p while Bank of Ireland was 11/2p firmer on 478p.

Adare gained 10p to 455p as former director Mr Bernard Somers disclosed that he sold 100,000 shares last week. Arcon was 1/4p firmer on 331/4p as US fund management group Capital disclosed that it has a stake of just over 5 per cent. Tullow was unchanged on 91p as heavy trading in the shares continued, with almost six million shares trading in London alone.

Gilts slipped in line with the weaker tone on European bond markets as investors await the outcome of the FOMC meeting over the next two days.