Europe's stock markets ended a difficult week with more falls as TMT sectors succumbed to the Motorola profit warning. The strain showed up clearly in the CAC-40, the benchmark index for the Paris bourse, which fell 2.4 per cent to 5,322.84. The CAC has fallen more than 10 per cent this month and is almost 24 per cent down on its peak of last September.
The CAC's heavyweight stock France Telecom fell 4.9 per cent to €64, while telecom equipment company Alcatel, a more direct competitor to Motorola, fell 7.6 per cent to €42.50. Alcatel is at a 10month low, France Telecom an 18-month low.
Goldman Sachs added to the gloom, saying market visibility looked grim in the short term for European telecom equipment companies. It downgraded Alcatel from "market outperformer" to "market performer" and removed it from its European Institutional Portfolio. It also downgraded Nokia and Marconi. Nokia fell 7.2 per cent to a 16month low of €23.58, while Marconi fell 6.3 per cent to 484p.
Another remarkable contribution to the debate came from Intel vice-president Mr Hans Geyer who told a telecoms conference in Cannes: "We're facing a situation where an industry is heading for bankruptcy . . . before even a 3G third generation mobile phone call is made."
One of Europe's biggest fallers this week has been the Finnish telecom operator Sonera, which has lost 27 per cent in five days. CMG, the Anglo-Dutch computer services company, denied a report that it would be issuing a profit warning. The shares fell 9 per cent to €11.15 in Amsterdam and 13.75 per cent to 694p in London.
A negative note from UBS Warburg added to DaimlerChrysler's woes ahead of Monday's results and Chrysler's restructuring statement by cutting earnings forecasts for 2001. The shares fell 3.4 per cent to €52.83.
ABN Amro, the Dutch bank, ran into a raft of negative broker comment and fell 1.5 per cent to €23.58 for a two-day decline of 8 per cent.
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