Positive sentiment boosts trading

AN overnight pick-up on the US markets continued into European trading sessions yesterday.

The Dublin market followed its EU peers by trading higher on the day amid continued positive sentiment that a bottoming out of the worldwide recession may be in sight. The ISEQ index added 85.81 points to close at 2,421.60.

Banks struggled on the day with Bank of Ireland and AIB filling the first two positions on the lagging movers list. The former shed 5c to 75c with the latter giving up 3.5c to 93.4c. IL&P managed to buck the trend tacking on 17c to e2.24. The leading market mover was CRH, moving on 74c to e17.12. Kingspan and Grafton Group followed suit adding 7.5c and 6c to e3.659 and e2.38.