Banking sector rally fails to revive Frankfurt

Shares in Frankfurt lost ground in spite of a banking sector rally, in which Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank ran up strong gains.

Telecoms stocks unwound Tuesday's gains, with SAP off 81 cents at €246.20 and Siemens down €3.43 at €164.82. Deutsche Telekom shed €1.12 at €45.62 and Infineon came off €1.94 at €71.20.

Insurers stayed under a cloud. Munich Re, hit by a broker downgrade in the preceding session, fell a further €14.90 to €324.01. Allianz lost €2.85 at €390.09.

But banks rose above the prevailing gloom, thanks to a results rally at Deutsche Bank and a revival of takeover speculation at Commerzbank. Deutsche Bank, which puts out first-half results today, surged €4.32, or 4.6 per cent, to €98.43. Media reports that a big shareholder was preparing to run down its stake sparked a round of speculative buying at Commerzbank. The shares, an erratic market since the failure of merger talks last month between Commerzbank and Dresdner Bank, jumped €1.10 to €39.10.

Preussag stayed in demand amid talk of the tour group offloading non-core activities. The stock rose €1.85 to €34.35 for a three-day gain of 11 per cent.

The Xetra DAX index was off 29.92 at 7,115.61 at 5.30 p.m. German time.

Paris saw rotation from technology stocks to a few select safe havens, leaving the CAC-40 index almost unchanged at 6,529.91, a loss of 2.38.

One tech stock that bucked the trend was communications network supplier Equant. It added 5.6 per cent to €43.40, following an 8.1 per cent gain on Tuesday, as investors continued to respond to its forecast of a return to profit in the second half. BNP Paribas upgraded the stock to "outperform" from "neutral".

Amsterdam saw strong demand for foods and detergents giant Unilever, and the AEX index ended up 5.07 at 675.96.

Tuesday's results statement from US consumer group Procter & Gamble sent Unilever ahead from the opening bell. "After the recent troubles at P&G, the absence of further nasty surprises came as a relief," said one broker.

Unilever, which puts out six-month figures tomorrow, ended a busy session €3.40, or 7 per cent, higher at €52.20 in 12.7 million shares traded.