Eurozone markets show strong gains

Yesterday was a largely positive day across the eurozone with the majority of markets ending in positive territory.

At home the Iseq surged ahead on the back of strong results from Ryanair. The benchmark index of Irish shares closed up 58.82 to 4,063.39.

In the construction sector, CRH continued its recent good run, gaining 18.5c to €17.21. Grafton Group declined 4c to €5.54, while Kingspan nudged up 2.6c to €9.42.

Elsewhere, Ryanair reported financial year 2013 results which were well in line with analysts’ expectations. After-tax profits of €569m for the year to the end of March were up 13% on the previous year.