Up nearly 5 per cent over the final two days of last week, Frankfurt ran into modest profit-taking and at the old official close of 5.30 p.m. the Xetra DAX index was off 27.41 at 7,411.54.

There was little domestic news and no obvious pointers to direction in Wall Street's early performance. Both trading volumes and range in Frankfurt were unexciting.

Paris spent the day marginally in the red, with TMT stocks the losers. The CAC-40 index ended 17.26 lower at 6,656.26. The best performers were old economy stocks. Car parts maker Valeo led the way with a 7.2 per cent rise to €58, although it remains well below this year's peak of €82.

Societe Generale rose 4.2 per cent to €66.70.