Market report: Trading on Dublin's Iseq picked up yesterday after a quiet bank holiday, helped by anticipation of a good set of results from AIB today. However, a positive performance from the bank, which added 22 cent to end the day at €17.97, failed to push the Iseq higher and it closed unchanged at 6,810.64.

Dealers are expecting a positive outlook statement from AIB, with likely upgrades to future earnings. In a note to investors, Citigroup forecast a 9 per cent increase in first-half underlying pretax profit, with a similar gain in revenue.

Another one to attract the attention of investors was Ryanair, whose 32 per cent jump in pretax profits helped boost the group's shares by 5 cent, to €6.85. The low-cost airline yesterday also reported a 35 per cent increase in revenue, while passenger numbers in the period were 30 per cent ahead.

Elsewhere, Grafton rose 5 cent, to end the day at €9.40 on expectation that the Bank of England will cut interest rates again this week.

Eircom was also up, ending the day at €1.77, 7 cent ahead of its closing price on Monday. Dealers said investors are slowly coming to terms with the company's decision to move into the mobile market with the purchase of Meteor and are realising that the proposed rights issue should not dilute the group's dividend payout in the long term.

Kingspan rose 9 cent to end the day at €10.90, while Paddy Power added 6 cent to close at €14.88.

Excluding AIB, the financials were mixed, with Bank of Ireland ending the day up 1 cent at €13.81. Anglo Irish and Irish Life & Permanent both declined, with Anglo ending the day down 18 cent, at €10.97, while Irish Life slipped 13 cents to close at €14.90.

Another negative mover was CRH, which has been losing ground as investors choose to take stock following a very positive performance over the past few weeks. The shares closed down 21 cent at €23.24.

Settlement Date: August 5th