The mood on world stock markets remained nervous, amid continuing concerns about high oil prices, a weak dollar and troubles for US banks.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones fell 97 points to 13,203 and the Nasdaq dropped 53 to 2,696 as Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said he saw 'sluggish' US economic activity into the first part of 2008.
European stock markets closed mixed, with the ISEQ in Dublin yet again taking a bigger hit. It ended down 140 points at 7,048, with most financial stocks lower. Bank of Ireland fell 36 cent to €10.25. Drinks group C&C fell 8% to €4.52 after saying that the managing director of its cider division, Brendan McGuinness, would retire from next May.
In London, the FTSE fell three to 6,382, held up by mining stocks after BHP Billiton made a long-awaited bid approach to Rio Tinto, which jumped more than 20% to £55 despite rejecting the approach. Financial stocks were lower, however, with Royal Bank of Scotland losing 5% to 424p.
Paris ended down 0.9%, but Frankfurt gained 0.25%. Earlier, Asian stocks fell, suffering their biggest drop in nearly three months as investors dumped financial shares on credit fears. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index shed over 2% to close at 15,772.
