European Midday Update: Europe Shuffles Before Fed Meeting

LONDON -- The outcome of the Federal Reserve meeting won't be known here until 7:15 p.m. London time, so any impact from the decision will be felt Thursday -- so this Wednesday in Europe is all about fine-tuning portfolios.

The FTSE 100 managed an opening burst of 19 points but by midmorning stood just 0.9 points higher at 6376.2. The Techmark moved up 7.8 points to 3422.0 before easing back to stand 5.7 points lower at 3408.3.

Pharmaceuticals continued to attract buyers, with Glaxo Wellcome (GLX) moving up 62p to 19.40 ($29.10) on relief that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was less than scathing about its drug Lontronex, although there was apparently a warning about side effects. SG Securities has a buy note on the stock this morning. Merger partner SmithKline Beecham (SBH) was up 20p to 874.

Tuesday's star performer Oxford Glycosciences, which, along with Cambridge Antibodies, has the potential to develop drugs using the maps of the human genome, advanced another 135p to 19.97. Lehman Brothers has put out a "strong buy" note on the stock and placed a 26 price target on the stock.

Oils encountered another bout of profit-taking despite one-month brent crude moving up to $31.60 a barrel. BP Amoco (BPA) was down 8p to 624.5 and Shell (SC) fell 6p to 563.5.

Most of Europe's other major stock markets were mixed. The CAC 40 in Paris was down 26.02 to 6542.07 and the Xetra Dax in Frankfurt was barely up 3.25 to 7052.21. The Neuer Markt's tech-heavy Nemax 50 index was down 45.5 to 6105.7.

Big German tech shares were in negative territory, with Siemens (SMAWY) down 1.90 euros to 156.75 ($148.25), Infineon (IFX) 4.43 euros lower to 88.07 and SAP (SAP) down 3.09 euros to 211.11.

Major European telcos were mixed, with Telefonica (TEF) up 0.63 euro to 22.13 before its board meeting later today.

France Telecom (FTE) dropped 2.40 euros to 155.50 and Deutsche Telekom (DT) was near unchanged at 63.52 euros. Both companies are considered possible predators following the apparent breakdown of the WorldCom-Sprint merger. (Check out TheStreet.com's continuing coverage of the fallout.)

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints