European Midday Update: Markets off to Bright Start

LONDON -- With the Dow rallying 113 points and the Nasdaq 106 points, market makers gave prices an early tweak and by midmorning the FTSE 100 was up 61.5 to 6180.1. Telecom, media and technology shares led the charge, and the Techmark was up 94.4 to 2959.1.

Vodafone AirTouch (VOD) rose 13p to 276 ($4.08) -- that's worth about 30 points on the Footsie -- as the European Commission made it clear that it has no objection, in principle, if Vodafone accepts a bid of both cash and shares for Orange. The two most likely bidders for Orange are France Telecom, which is thought to be putting together a cash-and-shares bid of between 27 billion and 30 billion, and KPN of the Netherlands, whose advisers reckon it can come up with about 31 billion. Vodafone reports full-year figures on Tuesday and many analysts expect the company to announce the sale of Orange then.

In other telecoms, British Telecom (BTY) gained 29p to 920 and Colt Telecom (COLTY) moved up 212p to 20.00.

Best of the techs so far is Bookham Technology (BKHM), which advanced 325p to 31.75. BATM Advanced Communications gained 112p to 33.25, Psion improved 31p to 561 and ARM Holdings (ARMHY) rose 53p to 549.

Europe's other stock markets were also higher early Thursday, with the Xetra Dax in Frankfurt up 102.5 at 6,937.4 and the CAC 40 in Paris was 130.2 higher at 6,157.3. The Neuer Markt's tech-heavy Nemax 50 index was up 245.2 at 5,835.1.

In Frankfurt, blue-chip techs rebounded from Wednesday's sell-off. Siemens (SMWAY) was up 1.60 euros at 146.60 ($132.72), Epcos (EPC) was up 3.00 euros at 121.20 and software maker SAP (SAP) was 15.50 euros higher at 568.50.

German financial issues were also higher, as Commerzbank (CRZBY) climbed 0.10 euros to 39.10, Dresdner Bank (DRSDY) rose 1.35 euros to 41.85 and Deutsche Bank (DTBKY) was up 0.28 euros at 81.13.

Major European telecoms surged along with the technology shares, with Deutsche Telekom (DT) up 2.70 euros at 59.30, Telefonica (TEF) up 0.46 euros at 20.60 and France Telecom (FTE) 7.80 euros higher at 138.20.

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