THE 50 point fall on Wall Street and further falls on the major European markets led to a bout of profit taking in the major financial shares which have led the stock market charge in recent weeks.

Dealers said, however, that there was no major volume in yesterday's dealing and there is no indication that the market is set for a correction.

Both of the major banks suffered profit taking with AIB 4p lower on 396p and Bank of Ireland also 4p lower on 521p.

The British acquisition by Irish Permanent was expected and the share closed unchanged on 464p as was Woodchester on 215p. Irish Life gained 1p to 263p.

Among the industrials, CRH bucked the downward trend and closed up 2 on 642p, while Smurfit drifted off 2p to 169p.

Among the second liners Avonmore was unchanged on 179p - Morgan Stanley Asset Management has disclosed that it recently sold 913,000 Avonmore shares king its stake down 6.7 per cent of the shares.

Elsewhere, there was a flurry of dealing in Abbey which closed up 2p on 187p while Adare continued its strong recovery with a 10 1/2p jump to 548p. Tullow once again traded in size in London and the shares closed up 3p in Dublin on 88p, while Petroceltic gained 2p to 30p.

Bond prices eased in thin trading in line with European markets as the market awaited the outcome of bond auctions in the US and Britain. Five year bonds closed on a yield of 6.01 per cent - while 10 year bonds were yielding 6.77 per cent at the close.