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European markets battered
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October 30, 2001: 8:29 a.m. ET
Degussa, GKN issue profit warnings, tech stocks follow Wall Street lower
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LONDON (CNN) - Europe's major bourses fell sharply on Tuesday after companies issued profit warnings and announced job losses.
Degussa, Europe's largest specialist chemicals producer, fell 6.4 percent after saying pretax profit would fall due to bad market conditions. The company said it planned to cut 1,000 jobs and close plants.
GKN, a UK engineering group, dropped 8.2 percent. The company announced it would cut 1,250 jobs to cope with a crisis in the aviation sector and said full year results would miss analyst forecasts.
London's FTSE 100 fell 1.5 percent to 5,010.2 and the CAC 40 blue chip index in Paris declined 2.4 percent to reach 4,279.35 while Frankfurt's electronically traded Xetra Dax dropped 2.3 percent to 4,553.42.
The pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300, a broader index of the region's largest stocks, was down 2 percent, with the information technology sector sliding more than 6 percent.
France's Alcatel, Europe's fourth-largest telecom equipment maker, dipped 6.2 percent on concerns it would issue another profit warning when it reports earnings on Wednesday.
Finland's Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone company, fell 6.1 percent. Swedish rival Ericsson dropped 4..8 percent and German communications and engineering giant Siemens (FSIE) lost 5.7 percent.
STMicroelectronics (PSTM), Europe's biggest semiconductor maker, slid 6.4 percent after chief executive Pasquale Pistorio told Reuters fears that a recovery in the world semiconductor market, battling through its worst
slowdown ever, is still some months away.
Infineon Technologies (FIFX), Europe No. 2 chip maker, fell 7.7 percent in Frankfurt and Philips Electronics, the third-biggest and Europe's biggest consumer electronics company, dropped 5.3 percent.
Stocks dependent on the semiconductor industry for growth also declined.
ARM Holdings (ARM), Europe's biggest chipmaker, slid 5.1 percent and the world's biggest supplier of equipment to make chips ASML dipped 6.4 percent.
3i (III), Europe's biggest publicly quoted technology investor, declined 6.1 percent. The company said it was closing seven offices in Europe and cutting 185 jobs, 17 percent of the group total, as a result of "current uncertain conditions."
In Amsterdam, the AEX index fell 1.7 percent and the SMI in Zurich was 1.6 percent lower, while Milan's MIB30 index dipped 2.5 percent.
In the U.S. on Monday, equity markets dropped sharply as nervousness spread about the possibility of weak gross domestic product data and corporate news.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 275.67, or 2.89 percent, to close at 9,269.50. It was the largest point drop since September 20, the fourth day that markets were open following the September 11 attacks. The Nasdaq composite index dropped 69.44, or 3.93 percent, to end at 1,699.52, marking the largest point drop since October 17.
Wall Street was expected to open lower later on Tuesday. S&P 500 index futures slipped 2.5 points to 1,070.5 on the Globex trading system, while fair value, a measure that takes account of interest costs and dividend payments, was calculated at 1,077.3. 
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