WITH London notching up its biggest one-day gain for five years, the Irish market pushed ahead steadily to another new high, with dealers reporting strong interest for the leaders and better-quality second-liners.
The British budget today will be the main influence on markets, but judging by yesterday's 121-point rise in the FTSE, the London market is not anticipating any unpleasant surprises.
The leaders were the main focus of attention and AIB dealt up strongly to close up 7 3/4p on 515p while Bank of Ireland was 4p higher on 729p after hitting 731p in earlier trading.
CRH was 3p higher on 695p while Smurfit was 1 3/4p higher on 191 3/4p as Paine Webber said that the linerboard market has now reached bottom and is due an upturn.
Standard Life has emerged as one of the recent heavy sellers of James Crean, unloading 600,000 shares in the past few weeks to take its stake to 1.64 million shares or 3.7 per cent of the total. Crean was 3p easier on 195p and will probably find it difficult to make much progress from that level.
Elsewhere, exploration news from Libya did not prevent Bula falling to a new low of 1 3/4p, less than half its price at the start of the year. Fyffes was unchanged on 95p ahead of today's interims which are expected to be down on last year, while Greencore gained 5p to 330p. Ryanair hit a new high with a 6p jump to 358p.
On the gilt market, prices rose sharply, fuelled by the continuing revaluation rumours. At the close, long-dated gilts were 75p higher and yielding 6.65 per cent, while mediums were 65p higher on a 6.36 per cent yield.
