Telecom Helps Lift European Markets

European markets were bounding back, partly helped by today's rally on Wall Street.

In London, strength in telecoms and bank stocks brought the FTSE 100 back to life at midmorning, but the blue-chip proxy gave back some of that strength in afternoon trading. The FTSE ended the day up 39.90 to 6327.20.

The FTSE opened down after information technology firm Sema(SEMA) warned that its results for the second half of this year would miss targets.

But strength in telecoms like Voadfone(VOD) and British Telecom(BT) and banks like Barclays(BCS) won out and lifted the index into the green.

Over on the continent, the Xetra Dax in Frankfurt stormed higher, lately up 90.03 to 6691. The CAC-40 in Paris was up 100.61 to 6153.65.

The beleaguered euro was lately trading at $0.8399.

Asian equity markets closed mixed overnight.

In Tokyo, gains in high-tech stocks offset weakness in banks, which fell on credit risk worries. High tech stocks rose partly on strength in U.S. tech futures overnight. The Nikkei 225 added 14.04, or 0.10%, to 14,315.35.

The greenback jumped higher to 111.19 yen.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell on weakness in telecom stocks on concerns over the Chinese governments plans to change mobile phone tariff regulations. Shares in China's two biggest cellular phone operators China Mobile and China Unicom led losses on the index, which closed down 1.28% to 14,376.90.

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