Uncertainty surrounding the US presidential election, a jittery euro and a steady drip of bad news on the corporate profits front kept equities in reverse. Both Frankfurt and Paris ended the week with net losses of 3.5 per cent.
News of tough regulatory moves against Swisscom in its home market coincided with another bad day for telecoms generally.
With a modest international revenue base Swisscom has always been vulnerable to competition on its home patch and the latest edict from the Swiss Federal Communications Commission suggests this is building.
Within six months - according to some London analysts - the group will be forced to open up its local loop lines to outsiders. From now, the going is to get rough, said one trader.
Swisscom fell 4.6 per cent to 417 Swiss francs after a low for the session of SFr404 on a day when earnings doubts and worries about the industry's media connections continued to weigh heavily on the sector.
The session opened with bottom of the range figures from Telecom Italia which lost 2.9 per cent at €13.29. Deutsche Telekom fell 3.2 per cent to €38.90 and France Telecom 4.6 per cent at €108.1. Telefonica came off 3.9 per cent at €20.70 ahead of next week's third quarter statement.
Chipmakers were out of favour on worries that growth in demand for chips may slow down, and after a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter downgrade of Intel and Dell Computer in the US.
ASM Lithography fell to €25.92 before recovering to close 8.9 per cent down at €26.84. ASML paid $1.8 billion in stock for US chip equipment maker Silicon Valley Group, whose prime customer is Intel, the world's largest chipmaker.
Media stocks were also under pressure, taking their lead from the sector's overnight slide on Wall Street after two global giants spoke of weakening advertising sales. Walt Disney slumped 16 per cent while News Corp's American Depository Receipts tumbled 12 per cent in US trade.
