The Irish Stock Exchange was 1.3 per cent down yesterday in line with other European bourses and as Tuesday's darlings - Irish Permanent and Irish Life - ceded some ground in profit-taking following the surges on the news of merger talks.

"The feeling is it is going to be a while before there is going to be a definitive move," one dealer said. A drop in the other financial stocks occurred as Europe reacted nervously to Wall Street. In earlier trading, the Dow Jones settled in favour of the Brazilian government's austerity package for 1999, allaying fears of a devaluation.

But Irish bank stocks followed European ones, which reacted negatively to fears on both sides of the Atlantic that a slowdown in consumer spending would translate into weaker economic growth and corporate profits.

The Irish financial index fell by 2.87 per cent although the main stocks still held on to some of the gains from Tuesday's trading.

Irish Permanent slipped back 20p to 975p and Irish Life by 10p to 590p. AIB was down 30p to 960p and Bank of Ireland eased 45p to £12. Anglo Irish, however, clung to its gains and closed up 1p yesterday to 161p. Among the industrials, CRH was noteworthy, dealing up 47p to 902p. One dealer said a US road-show put on by British fund managers had stimulated buying interest. Smurfit eased another 1p to close at 104p while Independent was up 5p at 265p.

Galen Holdings, which had not traded in over two weeks following the failure of merger discussions with Ferring Pharmaceuticals, gained 64p in one deal to close at 450p, a 16.5 per cent increase.

Ovoca, which issued a statement expressing regret at the chairman giving a future projected share price last week, shed some of its recent gains, easing back 4p to 28p. Bula had one trade, with the share price unchanged at 1p.