European Midday Update: Markets Down as Futures Indicate Lower U.S. Open
LONDON -- The FTSE 100 started strongly and was soon up 60 points, but a lack of follow-through support and an indication from the Standard & Poor's and Nasdaq futures contracts that Wall Street will open lower has led to it falling back to stand 42.5 points lower at 6196.3. The Techmark, however, was clinging to a rise of 15.9 points to 3768.0.
Vodafone AirTouch
(VOD)
began with an 8p gain, but by midmorning was down 9p at 268 ($4.10).
British Telecom
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threw away an initial rise of 20p to stand that much lower at
10.09.
Cable & Wireless
(CWP)
fell 27p to 994 and
Colt Telecom
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dipped 40p to
27.80.
A weekend press report that
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Dixons
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has hired
Goldman Sachs
to conduct a review of its 80% stake in
Freeserve
(FREE)
boosted the latter 13p to 420. Dixons currently has an agreement not to sell any more of its stake until July, but this does not mean it can't announce its intentions before then. Previous reports have said that
Deutsche Telekom's
(DT)
T-Online
is interested.
Abbey National
rose 35p to 784 on the launch of its e-banking service. There were more reports today that
Barclays Bank
(BCS)
is preparing a bid for Abbey National, but Barclays is in the middle of a share-repurchasing program and a bid is not expected until this is completed. Barclays was 40p lower at
15.92.
The usual suspects made the running in the tech sector, with
Bookham Technology
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rising 597p to
42.10 and
Baltimore Technologies
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, ahead of first-quarter figures on Tuesday, gaining 434p to
77.00 before falling back to trade 66p lower on balance at 72.00.
ARM Holdings
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moved up 12p to 730 and
Psion
rose 22p to 820.
Oils continued to perform well in the wake of Shell's excellent results last week.
Shell
(SC)
edged forward 3.5p to 531 and
BP Amoco
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, with first-quarter figures out Tuesday, rose 2p to 590.
Sports Internet
rose 12p to 762 amid reports of a bid approach by
BSkyB
(BSY)
, which was 18p lower at
16.21.
Europe's other stock markets started out the week slightly lower, with the
Xetra Dax
in Frankfurt down 47.88 at 7482.94 and the
CAC 40
in Paris 11.23 lower at 6534.53. The Neuer Markt's
Nemax All-Share
index was down 25.46 at 6610.28.
In Frankfurt, technology shares were having an off day as
Siemens
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dropped 0.75 euros to 169.00,
Epcos
(EPC)
dipped 3.60 euros to 156.40 and software-maker
SAP
(SAP)
fell 1.28 euros to 665.80.
Some of the day's biggest gainers were Old Economy stocks like
Thyssen Krupp
, which gained 0.50 euros to 24.50. Financial issues
Commerzbank
(CRZBY)
and
Deutsche Bank
(DTBKY)
were also able to climb 0.15 euros to 42.85 and 0.19 euros to 76.19, respectively.
Deutsche Telekom fell 1.25 euros to 68.65, despite reports the third tranche of the company's shares to be floated would be smaller than expected. Other European telecom stocks were also lower, as
France Telecom
(FTE)
fell 1.30 euros to 169.00 and
Telefonica
(TEF)
dipped 0.07 euros to 26.08.
