Frankfurt DAX:

German shares retreated under the weight of losses by DAX index blue-chips, Siemens, SAP and Veba AG, traders said. They said these losses, together with a weaker dollar, accounted for 15 per cent of the DAX index.

The drop drew some attention from Wall Street, where traders were concerned the fall in German shares would weigh on the Dow Jones Industrial average. Electrical engineering group Siemens was down three D-marks at DM111, extending a 5 per cent drop from the day before.

On Wednesday, Siemens said it would not meet its profit forecast, prompting some analysts to downgrade the stock. Yesterday it turned over most of its PC business to Acer.

Paris CAC-40:

The Paris Bourse suffered a moderate loss, due mainly to profit-taking, as the CAC-40 index finished the day at 3822.13 points, down 0.34 per cent from the Wednesday close. However, the April trading account wound up with a 2.24 per cent gain. The indicator had opened with a drop, got back in the plus column in the morning and then slipped back to a loss as the session went on. Trading was very active on the last day of the trading month, with 14.5 billion francs exchanged on the monthly settlement market. Some traders are taking profits from the front-line stocks and shifting to second and third-liners which have so far missed out on the rise this year.

Milan Mibtel:

The Milan stock market plummeted by 3.62 per cent as the Mibtel index shed 911 points to end at 24,252 points, as investors took profit across the board.

Domestic retail investors are much less active than they have been in the past weeks, and yesterday's correction followed on the heels of a Bank of Italy interest rate cut.

Every share in the Mib-30 blue-chip index fell by over 2 per cent, with Fiat down over 5 per cent and Pirelli down by over 6 per cent. Finmeccanica was one of the few shares to go against the market and rose by 1.7 per cent - boosted by expectations that its two trillion lire capital increase will wipe out its debt.