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European markets rebound
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February 7, 2002: 9:19 a.m. ET
Telecoms recover on BT results, reverse declines from Philips losses
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LONDON (CNN) - European markets turned positive in mid-afternoon trading on Thursday, after BT Group beat expectations in the third quarter, lifting telecom stocks.
BT (BT) jumped 7.7 percent after it posted a third-quarter net income of £721 million ($1 billion) and cut debt to £13.6 billion. Many other European telecoms stocks also managed to recover from earlier losses in the session.
It also helped to reverse some of the negative impact from Philips Electronics, Europe's largest consumer electronics company, which posted a loss of $1 billion in the fourth quarter and warned it did not see markets strengthening. Philips also rebounded from earlier losses, rising
2.4 percent at midday.
London's FTSE 100 climbed 0.2 percent to 5,085.5 and the CAC 40 blue chip index in Paris rose 0.3 percent to 4,288.23, while Frankfurt's electronically traded Xetra Dax also rose 0.2 percent to 4,811.63.
The pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300, a broader index of the region's largest stocks, was up 0.4 percent, with the telecoms, IT and insurances sector leading the advances. The oil and gas, and mining sectors were in negative territory.
Vodafone (VOD), the world's biggest mobile phone company, gained 4.4 percent, while French mobile operator Orange (PORA) was up 5 percent. France Telecom (FTE) climbed 2.8 percent, while Deutsche Telekom (DTEG) edged up 0.7 percent in Frankfurt.
Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, rose 3.7 percent, while Ericsson, the world's biggest supplier of mobile phone networks, advanced 1.3 percent.
Technology stocks initially stumbled after U.S. networking giant Cisco Systems (CSCO: Research, Estimates) posted lower fiscal second-quarter earnings due to the communications spending slowdown and said its current fiscal third quarter revenues were flat to rising in the "low single-digit" range from the second quarter.
Among Europe's smaller markets, Amsterdam's AEX index edged up 0.4 percent, while Milan's MIB30 index rose 0.8 percent and the SMI in Zurich was up 1.4 percent.
In the U.S. on Wednesday, stocks failed to snap their recent losing streaky, even as beleaguered Tyco International offered some reassurance to investors.
Tyco (TYC: Research, Estimates) Chairman Dennis Kozlowski offered analysts a mixed picture during a conference call, saying the conglomerate may miss current 2002 estimates, but that its much-discussed accounting is in good health.
The Nasdaq composite index slipped 1.4 percent to 1,812.71, while the Dow Jones industrial average dipped 0.3 percent to 9,653.39.
Wall Street was expected to open slightly lower later on Thursday. S&P 500 index futures slipped 0.5 points to 1,082.80 on the Globex trading system, while fair value, a measure that takes account of interest costs and dividend payments, was calculated at 1,083.51. 
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