The spectre of the 10th anniversary of Black Monday combined with unhelpful capacity utilisation and producer prices in the US had a debilitating effect on international stock markets. In Dublin, financial shares felt the brunt of the weaker tone and most of the bigger stocks lost ground.

Black Monday anniversaries seem to have a psychological effect on the market, but when coupled with some indifferent corporate results like the third-quarter figures from Intel and higher than expected industrial production and capacity utilisation figures, it doesn't take much to make markets jittery.

In Dublin, AIB closed down 6p on 595p. Bank of Ireland was 4p lower on 870p while Irish Permanent was 5p easier on 680p in thin trading.

The one exception to the weaker tone among the financials was Anglo Irish Bank which moved ahead 2p to a new high on 115p. If there is to be further takeover activity in the financials, then Anglo Irish is seen as a likely candidate for a bid.

There was little activity of note among the industrials, but CRH edged 1p ahead to 825p while Smurfit lost 2p to 223p after the indifferent third-quarter results from JS Corp. James Crean - once the darling of the Irish investment community - continued its free fall from stardom and lost 13p to 120p. Adare gained 10p to 730p while Ryanair recovered after Thursday's sharp fall and closed up 8p on 390p.