Stocks fell further on another grim day for equity markets worldwide. Early hopes that a late rally overnight in the US would feed through to Europe quickly dissipated.

Financial stocks bore the brunt of losses, with AIB 35 cents weaker on €11.50, Irish Life & Permanent off 15 cents at €9.20 and First Active 10 cents softer at €5.50.

Bank of Ireland was less badly hit, surrendering just two cents to €9.74. The bank announced it had been back in the market on Tuesday buying shares. It bought 1.45 million shares at a price of €9.85.

Anglo Irish Bank was back in favour, climbing five cents to €6.10.

Among the leading industrials, CRH lost 20 cents to €11.45, while poor market sentiment stopped Kerry Group building on its strong results. It closed off 17 cents at €11.23.

Jupiter Asset Management revealed it bought a further 1 per cent of Arnotts on Tuesday. The fund manager holds 4.06 per cent of the company following the acquisition of 182,980 shares for around €2.28 million and the purchase indicates a belief that a higher offer for the retailer will emerge.

Ryanair saw decent volumes with 3.5 million shares changing hands as the airline took a hard line over the prospects for its new acquisition, Buzz, which faces mothballing for a month, a halving of routes and the loss of two-thirds of staff. The stock closed down four cents on €6.16.

Continuing a feature of this week's trade, a number of second-line stocks saw business as certain positions are unwound. Some of the heaviest trade came in Waterford Wedgwood, which saw 6.8 million shares trading but the price closed unchanged on 31 cents.

There was interest too in IWP, where close to 1.5 million shares crossed in a straight deal at 32 cents.