Financial shares continued to power ahead with no sign that the current bull market in the shares is peaking. So far, there are only tentative signs of profit-taking and most of the bigger financial shares are still drawing bid interest at last night's closing levels.

The biggest volumes remained concentrated in Bank of Ireland where 4.6 million shares traded in Dublin yesterday on top of 8.4 million traded in London. Bank of Ireland did trade as high as €9.30 in Dublin before closing six cents higher on €9.06. Whether that late selling means that Bank of Ireland's recent strong performance has run out of steam remains to be seen.

AIB also came back from its best level but still closed 32 cents higher on €12.22. Irish Life was 16 cents higher on €11.21 but Anglo Irish drifted seven cents lower to €2.58. First Active - which announced yet another boardroom departure - was 15 cents higher on €2.00.

Further heavy trading in Dunloe Ewart - another 3.5 million shares yesterday - suggests that Liam Carroll may have been back in the market adding to the 12.3 per cent he snapped earlier in this week in a couple of dawn raids.

Eircom eased two cents to €2.52, Arnotts was 10 cents higher on €6.90 as BIAM disclosed that it has bought another 251,000 shares to take its stake to 9.6 per cent, while Glanbia lost four cents to 56 cents. Greencore was eight cents firmer on €2.78 while Grafton bounced back from recent profit-taking and dealt up €1.40 to €25.40. Kerry jumped 43 cents to €14.73.