With the non-farm payroll figures sending the Dow to another all time high, share prices in Dublin continued to power ahead with tremendous demand for the main financial shares in particular.

And of the two major banks, AIB has been most in demand and has now narrowed the gap in market capitalisation with Bank of Ireland to just Pounds 1 million.one position in the Irish public company hierarchy.

In Dublin, AIB dealt in big volumes and closed up 1 1/2p on 538 1/2p while Bank of Ireland was l7p higher on 753p. Other financials also improved but in much smaller volumes and Irish Life was up 6p on 34lp while Irish Permanent gained 10p to 630p.

Industrials did not benefit from the positive moves overseas and the small fall in the industrial index is mainly due to a 4p fall to 191p by Smurfit. CRH was 3p firmer on 700p, Waterford Foods gained 2p to 142p on optimism that the merger with Avonmore will go ahead at the special meetings next week while Avonmore itself was unchanged on 285p.

Gilts made modest gains after the US non-farm payroll figures with the biggest gains being notched up at the longer end of the market. The Irish market, however, continued to under perform the German bond market and the yield gap against bunds widened marginally.

A revaluation of the pound within the ERM continued to preoccupy dealers and with the pound rising within the grid to 11.6 per cent above the weakest currency, the French franc the rumours were given additional fuel.