The buyers returned to telecommunications equipment stocks in spite of harsh broker comment on the sector and a soft opening for Motorola as Wall Street awaited the mobile handset leader's third-quarter results.

The consensus view of the figures due late in the US day was for another quarterly loss but with the possibility of a statement from the group suggesting there could be light at the end of the tunnel.

Betting heavily on the prospect of an upbeat statement, Nokia, Siemens and Alcatel all cruised steadily higher, brushing aside a downgrade for Alcatel from WestLB Panmure and a deeply cautious note on the sector from Deutsche Bank.

Pulling few punches, Deutsche Bank painted a bleak picture of an industry faced with frighteningly high debt, falling credit ratings and little recourse to capital markets.

Ericsson ended 1.5 per cent lower at SKr40.70, but Nokia (which releases results next week) rose 2.2 per cent at €19.11 and Siemens 1.4 per cent at €44.85. Alcatel, which WestLB Panmure cut to "sell" from "underperform", gained 3.9 per cent at €12.49.

Technology stocks bounded higher, boosted by reports that US investment bank Lehman Brothers was an aggressive buyer of Germany's Infineon and on the view that the sector had been too heavily oversold over the past six weeks.

Dealers said there was little response to a warning from ABN Amro that sales growth in the industry would fall to a long-term average of 10 per cent from the 14 per cent which markets had factored into current share prices.

Infineon jumped 7 per cent to 14.67 while the Dutch chip equipment maker ASM International rose 3 per cent to 13.55.

Media stocks, which had lagged behind the rally of the last fortnight, also cut their losses. France's Havas climbed 6.1 per cent to 6.79 while the Dutch Elsevier rose 2.6 per cent to 12.78.