THE Dublin stock market is within half of a per cent of its all time closing high as markets gained ground all over Europe.

The London stock market added 24.7 points to end at 4,115.7 points, an all time closing high.

In Dublin trading was fairly quiet, but the ISEQ index of overall shares rose by 16.25 points, or 0.61 per cent, to close at 2688.85. This leaves it within reach of last October's all time high of just over 2700.

The rise in European markets was mainly due to Wall Street's recent strong performances.

The Paris Bourse posted a substantial gain as the CAC 40 index finished the day at 2,318.63 points, up 0.51 per cent from the Friday close.

The Frankfurt stock market racked up a strong gain as the DAX index finished at 2,887.85, points, up 1.23 per cent from 2,852.88 at the official close on Friday. However, neither Paris nor Frankfurt hit new highs.

Amsterdam put on the strongest performance among European exchanges, following the announcement that the Dutch insurance company Aegon had agreed to buy the life operations of Providian Corporation, a US insurer.

The AEX index rose 9.15 points, or 1.43 per cent, and closed at 648.24, a new record.

The Spanish market, which has gained 9.5 per cent in December and is up 41.6 per cent on the year, also hit a high as the Madrid General Index rose 0.7 per cent to 443.42.

Scandinavian markets also reached new highs: the Danish KFX index rose 2.1 points to 136.13, up 1.6 per cent on the day. That was followed by Sweden, where the Affarsvarlden General index climbed 24.7 points to 2,402.9, up 1 per cent. In Norway, the Oslo Total index rose 0.8 per cent to 968.37 while Finland's Hex index rose by 0.6 per cent to 2,495.93.

Other records were attained in Switzerland, where the SMI rose by 0.7 per cent to 3,948.3, and on the Lisbon and Budabest stock exchanges.