Shares turned sharply weaker in early trading in Dublin and that weakness was maintained into the afternoon, as Wall Street opened weaker.
The nervousness in the markets is down to today's meeting of the Fed's policy-making committee, where although some bearish comments on interest rates are expected from Fed hawks, US interest rates are expected to hold for at least the next month.
Rises in interest rates are bad for banks and most of the Irish financials fell sharply, despite the speculation that the Fortis/ Generale merger may be the forerunner of more cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the financial sector in the years ahead.
AIB was 19p lower on 945p, Bank of Ireland fell 20p to £14, Irish Life was 10p lower on 620p while Irish Permanent dropped 20p to 915p.
Among the industrials, weakness in the sector and sharp falls on Wall Street by merger aspirants JS Corp and Stone left Smurfit sharply lower and the share closed 9 1/2p lower on 250p 1/2p - almost 10p below its level immediately before the announcement of the JS Corp-Stone merger. CRH was 5p weaker on £10.65, Greencore gained 10p to 395p, Kerry was 25 lower on £10.25 while Tesco - on its first day on the Irish market - dealt at 612p.
Irish stocks on NASDAQ were mixed. Newcomer ICON suffered the inevitable profit-taking after the 41 per cent jump on Friday, but was still trading little more than $1/2 lower and at $24 7/8 is still well above the $18 IPO offering price.
