Buoyant international markets and news of the merger between Smurfit's associate company, JS Corp, and Stone Corporation boosted the Dublin Stock Exchange yesterday, with leading stocks edging forward although volumes were thin.

One dealer said the fear of interest rate rises in Germany and the US had subsided in the short term, while the merger agreement between SBC Communications and Ameritech set Wall Street buzzing.

Smurfit, which has a 46 per cent stake in JS Corp, dealt a lot "ahead of its announcement" and despite some profit-taking and the deal with Stone being well flagged last week, dealt up 17p to 277p. The intra-day's high, the first deal of the day, was at 290p on strong Irish investor interest.

DCC, after announcing pre-tax profits of £36.7 million - a 16 per cent increase on last year - provided the other news. It climbed to a new high of 710p, up 5p on its previous high, and up 30p, or 4.4 per cent, on the day. Esat, which also announced results yesterday, saw its price down 0.75 cents at $327/8 on the Nasdaq. The financials provided the main impetus for the ISEQ increase, with AIB, at 854p sterling (983p), up 15p on the day, after 11 deals, Bank of Ireland, up 40p at 1450p on five deals, and Irish Life, closing up 10p to 645p on nine deals. With results out on Thursday, and its American subsidiaries performing well, one dealer said that further buying at Bank of Ireland could be expected.

The other financial groups were mostly positive, with Anglo Irish Bank up 3p to 207p, while Irish Permanent was up 20p to 950p. Among the industrial stock, CRH nudged up another 10p to 1030p after last week's $60 million US acquisition, Clondalkin was up 5p to 720p but Ryanair dropped 14p to 530p. Kingspan saw some renewed interest after last week's failed bid for Matsec, seeing its price rise 7p to 330p.

Glencar saw no deals on its results and news that its gold mine in Ghana was proceeding in line with expectations.