The ISEQ edged into the red by midday on downbeat tech sector news and was down nearly four points at 5,570.14.
Following yesterday’s sharp falls hopes that the financials would stage a rally were dampened with Anglo Irish Bank off nine cents on euro 3.12, Irish Life and Permanent down four cents to euro 12.55 and AIB off one cent on euro 13.12 during early trading.
However, Bank of Ireland climbed back up through the euro 10.00 mark with a five cent rise this morning to euro 10.01.
Eircom shares were not helped by disappointing full-year mobile phone sales results from European giant Nokia and by midday its stock was off two cents on euro 2.47.
But there was better news for Independent shares which gained nine cents to euro 3.20 and Horizon stocks which were trading at euro 6.80, a gain of 10 cents.
CRH eased ahead 11 cents to euro 20.05, Dunloe shed two cents to euro 0.41 while Green Property fell back three cents to euro 7.02.
Ryanair shares dropped 15 cents to euro 11.10 on the back of profit-taking.
At midday, the FTSE 100 index was down 70.8 points at 6,078.8, just 6 points above its morning low, and well off its earlier 6,195.9 morning high.
The Nokia news delivered a real blow to sentiment in the techMark, which moved into negative territory - down 12.49 at 2,425.80. Only the Smaller Cap index managed to buck the weak trend, up 14.4 at 3,183.9.