European Midday Update: Markets Only Slightly Lower, as if Nothing Happened

U.K.'s FTSE 100 index manages to rally above 6000-point level.

Author:
TSC Staff
Publish date:
Apr 18, 2000 6:43 AM EDT

U.K.'s FTSE 100 index manages to rally above 6000-point level.

LONDON -- The FTSE 100 staged a reasonable rally above 6000 Tuesday morning, but it would take some really serious buying to see it back to the levels of last week. Some of the major players have already set down their tools ahead of the Easter break, and as a result the recovery doesn't seem to have much oomph about it.

By midmorning, the Footsie was 4.6 points higher to 5999.2, having been 85 points up after just a quarter of an hour's trading. The

Techmark

index was up 154.5 points, or 4.6%, to 3543.2.

The morning's major faller was

BP Amoco

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, which fell 21p to 506 (US$8.00) mainly on technical considerations following the removal of

Atlantic Richfield

(ARC) - Get Free Report

, recently acquired by the company, from the

Standard & Poor's

index in the U.S. U.S. funds were forced to sell their Arco holdings, which resulted in pressure being exerted on the BP Amoco price as new shares issued in connection with the acquisition were listed in New York and London. Dealers expect BP Amoco to recover from this fall Tuesday as index tracking funds increase their weighting in BP Amoco to 8.7% of the FTSE 100 from 7.5% previously.

For investors who were brave Monday and retained their technology stock holdings, there was better news Tuesday morning following the

Nasdaq

rally overnight. Best of the bunch was

Baltimore Technologies

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, which rose 620p to

64.50. These shares have fallen 60% since March 10, so they're due for a bounce.

ARM Holdings

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was 297p higher to

33.65 and

Psion

improved 223p to

30.00.

HSBC

(HBC)

rose 5.5p to 699 on news that the company is teaming up with

Merrill Lynch

(MER)

to form the first "global" (well, it won't include the U.S.) online banking and investment service.

Prudential plc

responded to good first-quarter business figures with a gain of 11p to 899 before slipping back to stand just a penny dearer at 869.

Vodafone AirTouch

(VOD) - Get Free Report

was back in demand after news that its

Mannesmann

subsidiary has sold just over half its holding in

Atecs Mannesmann Engineering

Siemens

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and

Bosch

. Vodafone rose above 300 before coming off slightly to stand 13p higher at 298. At least four leading broking houses are recommending clients buy Vodafone this morning.

QXL.com

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gained 25p to 262, boosted by a partnership deal with

British Telecom's

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mobile unit BT Cellnet, whereby both sets of customers can bid for items on WAP mobile phones though BT's Genie mobile portal.

On the Continent, it seemed almost like the last two sessions had never happened, with tech and telecom shares once again the flavor of the day. The

Xetra Dax

in Frankfurt was slightly down 30.48 to 7156.66 and the

CAC 40

in Paris was down 38.08 to 6022.46.

Gains for technology issues in Frankfurt were just enough to offset slumping Old Economy shares, as software maker