ISEQ's afternoon activity pushes it into the black

The ISEQ in Dublin made an afternoon recovery today closing up 23 points to 5129.

Ryanair regained some ground, closing up 8c to €4.83, after yesterday's 25% plunge on profit warnings. The market is now waiting to see next week's decision on the airline's Charleroi subsidies.

The banks were mainly down, but up on earlier losses in the day. AIB closed up 7c to €13.52 on speculation that it was in talks with ING about a merger of their respective Polish interests. Anglo dipped 6c to €13.69 and BOI was flat at €11.55. Irish L&P continued yesterday's demise, down 15c to €13.85.

Elan added 13c to €7.08. Elan and Biogen announced today the success of the third phase of trials of Antegren, the drug for the treatment of Crohn's disease.

Food company IAWS closed up 23c to €9.38. The group said today at its AGM that they were confident of a satisfactory performance in the first half of the year, prior to publication of their interim results in March. IAWS said food sales were going well in the US, Irish and UK markets.

Construction heavyweight CRH closed up 3c to €16.88 and DCC added 34c to €12.24 . The business services firm was awarded just over €14m today in a case against a supplier. Personal care company IWP, was a gainer today, up 1c to €0.34.

Independent News & Media was down 1c to €2.04. The company announced today they had sold off their 50% stake in Chorus to US cable company Liberty Media.

E-learning company Thirdforce was down 1c to €0.37. Yesterday the company said they were in talks over with a potential Irish takeover target, but did not name the firm involved.