Alcatel suffers yet again while gloom stalks Paris

Gloom continued to stalk the markets, with the Paris bourse falling below 5,000 on the benchmark index as technology stocks continued to suffer.

French telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel, which fell 11.4 per cent on Thursday and 7.5 per cent on Wednesday, yesterday lost another 5.8 per cent to end at €19.13.

The hapless Highwave Optical, a French maker of fibre optic components, fell sharply for a third day. On Thursday night Corning of the US filed a lawsuit against it, alleging patent infringement. Highwave fell 18.4 per cent to €4.96, making a total of more than 45 per cent on the week.

Chipmaker STMicroelectronics fell 5.6 per cent to €34.60 after sector peer Advanced Micro Devices of the US said the slowdown was going to hit its results. Siemens fell 6.2 per cent to €63.70, its lowest level for 19 months.

Telecom stocks, which had got off relatively lightly earlier in the week, began to catch up with the poor fortunes of their technology brothers.

The telecom index on the FTSE Eurotop fell about 3 per cent, with Equant, the high speed network service provider, down 11.9 per cent to €17.10.

France Telecom shares fell 4.6 per cent to €51.70.