The Irish index of shares rose 1 per cent today as renewed strength in banking shares helped carry the index higher.
By 12.27pm, the Iseq was up 32.53 to 3,180.04, with financial stocks among the main movers.
The shares were following a Europe-wide trend that saw banks gain on the markets.
AIB was up 2.6 per cent to €1.73, while Bank of Ireland rose 3.6 per cent to €1.43, after initially underperforming its rival. Irish Life and Permanent was more muted, gaining just under 1 per cent to €3.10.
Chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank Mike Aynsley yesterday told The Irish Times that the bank would require an additional capital injection of €9 billion from the State to keep Anglo afloat and reinvent the bank as a business lender under its plans.
Meanwhile, media reports today suggested Bank of Ireland may need to agree to sell off UK assets to get clearance from the EU on its restructuring plans.
Traders noted that the bank has already flagged to the market that its €32 billion UK mortgage book is closed to new business and will be run down. A further €5 billion of corporate lending is earmarked for de-leveraging. However, traders said the run-off of the UK mortgage book was looking "painfully slow".
It is not yet clear which elements of the business the disposal would relate to, but traders said the disposal of the joint venture with Britain's Post Office, which had €8 billion of deposits last September, would just exacerbate the funding stresses.
Shares in Independent News and Media were up 9.5 per cent on considerable volumes as the market awaited news of a possible sale of the group's London Independent and the Independent on Sunday. Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, owner of London's Evening Standard newspaper, and INM entered an exclusive non-binding agreement in December on the titles.
The group yesterday reported operating profit of €177.2 million, a fall of 39 per cent on the previous year as advertising weakened. One Dublin trader said the company's reasonably stable outlook was helping support the shares today.
By 12.20pm, the stcok was trading at just over 11 cent on the Dublin market.
Shares in C&C also gained, rising 4 per cent to €3.14. The UK budget yesterday increased the duty on cider, but analysts described the approach by the government as "gradualist". Traders said the aded duty would increase on-trade prices by 1 per cent, while off-trade prices would rise 2 per cent.
"This should be well manageable from a brewers’ standpoint, in that the impact on volume should not be materia," Goodbody Stockbrokers said in a note. "In Ireland, by contrast, when prices had to be increased by an extra 7 per cent in 2002, volumes declined by 11 per cent as cider lost share to other long drinks."
They speculated that the company may absorb the price increase itself, which would amount to around £9 million.