European Midday Update: Markets Higher but Quiet
LONDON -- The markets were quiet ahead of the U.S. unemployment numbers, with the FTSE 100 up 61.7 points at 6262.40 and the Techmark up 44.7 at 3762.1.
Most of the activity was in the oil sector.
Shell
(SC)
gained 18p to 526 ($7.36), boosted by Thursday's first-quarter earnings figures and a firm crude oil price which saw Brent trading at $25.48 a barrel.
Warburg Dillon Read
is recommending the stock to clients this morning and so is
SG Securities
.
BP Amoco
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sported a similar rise, to 578.
Lasmo
(LSO)
, additionally boosted by news of two new gas discoveries in Indonesia, added 5p to 115 and
Enterprise Oil
TheStreet Recommends
(ETP)
rose 4p to 475.
Telecom shares, having suffered in recent days following the
AT&T
(ATT)
profits warning, stage a mini-revival.
British Telecom
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improved 36 to
10.84 and
Vodafone AirTouch
(VOD)
edged forward 3p to 271.5.
Best of the tech bunch was
Baltimore Technologies
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, which rose 481p to
76.00.
Psion
gained 90p at
40.50 and
Bookham Technology
was up 137p to
32.50.
ARM Holdings
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moved up 33p to 695 and
Logica
was 55p higher at
20.50.
Fibernet
responded to a return to profitability with a gain of 225p at
21.62.
Europe's continental stock markets were posting modest gains as techs and telecoms came back into favor. The
Xetra Dax
in Frankfurt was up 31.30 at 7418.01 and the
CAC 40
in Paris was 31.84 higher at 6523.58. The Neuer Markt's
Nemax All-Share
index was up 39.66 at 6607.34.
German technology stocks received a boost from
Epcos's
(EPC)
healthy second-quarter results. Midday, Epcos was up 2.96 euros at 161.00 ($143.32),
Siemens
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was up 0.46 euros at 165.01 and software-maker
SAP
(SAP)
was 11.90 euros higher at 653.90.
Deutsche Telekom
(DT)
was up 0.90 euros at 67.90, but
France Telecom
(FTE)
was 1.20 euros lower at 167.50 and
Telefonica
(TEF)
was down 0.45 euros at 25.70.
German automakers were mixed, with
DaimlerChrysler
(DCX)
down 0.16 euros at 64.59 and
Volkswagen
(VLKAY)
up 0.55 euros at 46.15.
