A day of narrow trading in Frankfurt left shares little changed. The main features were a strong chemicals sector but weak technology stocks.
Siemens fell €2.94 to €155.71 and Epcos €3.20 at €120.69 on a day of steady selling among tech shares. SAP shed €3.60 at €210.60.
Dax newcomer Infineon Technologies, up strongly on Tuesday after an upbeat trading statement, fell €5.70 to €86.80 on profit-taking.
Where there were signs of buying, they showed through in chemicals with Bayer climbing 74 cents to 39.63 on news of US regulatory approval for its haemophilia drug, Kogenate.
BASF added 95 cents at 41.96 and Schering put on 2.63 or 4.5 per cent at 58.95.
The Xetra Dax index was off 17.33 at 7,031.63 at 5.30 p.m. German time.
Paris edged back over 6,600 on the CAC 40 index and volumes returned to normal, having been subdued earlier in the week. While the overall market was up just 0.6 per cent, several stocks saw quite pronounced share movements.
The biggest riser was defence electronics company Thomson- CSF, which rebounded from recent weakness amid hopes that a radar deal with its US partner Raytheon was imminent.
Thomson, which lost more than 6 per cent in the first two sessions of the week, closed €2.61 or 6.4 per cent higher yesterday at €43.21.
France Telecom spent the day in the red but ended up €1 to €158.90 as investors assessed the implications of the blocked merger between WorldCom and Sprint.
Club Med, the travel company, posted a 51 per cent rise in first-half profits but its shares fell €1.60 to €144.40 after it disappointed investors by failing to provide news of future marketing alliances.
The CAC-40 finished 39.87 higher at 6,607.96.
Amsterdam was led lower by falls among blue chips and the AEX index ended down 0.26 at 683.15.
Supported by an increase in target price to €90 at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, the stock jumped €3.50 to €43.80.
Zurich edged ahead for a fourth straight session, bolstered by gains in heavyweight financial UBS. The SMI index finished UBS was the main top-tier gainer with a rise of SFr5 or 2.1 per cent to SFr241 amid market rumours of a buy recommendation from a German bank.
The Mibtel index added 331 at 31,875, although many investors were waiting for news on US interest rates.
