FINANCIAL shares felt the brunt of negative sentiment after Friday's 3 per cent fall on Wall Street. By the close, however, the market had bounced back, in line with the modest recovery on Wall Street.

Brokers said there was no mad rush to sell the market, despite the slump in US bond prices and Friday's 171 point fall by the Dow. Still, share prices fell sharply and a large line of AIB shares - thought to be about one million - was put through the market in early trading. AIB fell to 320p before recovering to close down 5p on the day at 325p.

Bank of Ireland and Irish Life suffered most from the poor sentiment towards financials. Bank of Ireland was off 11p on 424p while Irish Life dropped 14p to 241p. Irish Permanent was 7p weaker on 385p although Woodchester was unchanged on 194 1/2p.

Some of the falls among the industrials were partly the result of ex dividend trading. A large chunk of CRH's 9p fall was because yesterday's buyers would not receive the 6.35p dividend. CRH was not helped, however, by the poor results from Costain and Tarmac in Britain. The same applied to Avonmore which lost 10p to 140p as trading, minus the 2.35p dividend, began.

Smurfit was buoyant and closed down just 1p on 152p after a firm performance by JS Corp on Friday. The US associate's share price was unchanged in a sharply falling market. If Friday's US job, figures really represent a rising economy, then cyclical stocks like Smurfit and JS Corp could benefit.

Greencore lost 10p to 290p after the very heavy trading on Friday in London, but was in better demand in London yesterday, closing down just 4p on the day on 305p sterling, after being as low as, 298p sterling earlier.