Europe was led lower once again by its technology and telecom stocks amid talk of a profit warning at mobile phone maker Nokia. The company refused to comment. Nokia's shares fell 7.5 per cent to €25.40, taking them down to another 15-month low.

Some analysts said that comments by electronics group Siemens also hurt Nokia stock. Siemens announced it had bought Efficient Networks, the US maker of broadband equipment, for $1.5 billion, a purchase which would weigh on short-term earnings.

While investors and analysts saw the acquisition as welcome and Siemens itself said it would help with its ambition to become one of the world's top three in broadband networks, the shares succumbed to poor tech sentiment and fell 2.7 per cent to €129.85.

Nokia's tech peers such as Alcatel and Ericsson fell heavily but recovered some ground. Alcatel ended 1 per cent lower at 346 and Ericsson 4 per cent down at SKr81. Software company SAP fell 4.6 per cent to €179.69.

One stock which has been in the casualty ward all week is Deutsche Telekom. At one point yesterday it rallied 4 per cent but in late trading was 2 per cent down at €24.66.

Investors seemed determined to continuing punishing it following Wednesday's revelation that it would take a one-off write down on its property portfolio which cut net profit for 2000 from €7.4 billion to €5.9 billion. It also announced on Wednesday it was selling its 10 per cent stake in the US telecom Sprint, fetching just a third of the price it could have obtained a year ago.

Europe's struggling Internet stocks had a gloomy day. The sector suffered another high level defection when Mr Abel Linares quit as chief executive of Terra Networks, the Spanish company that merged with US portal Lycos last October. Terra Lycos's shares fell 7.25 per cent to €13.56. Mr Linares' departure follows that three weeks ago of Mr Bob Davis, chief executive of Terra Lycos and founder of Lycos.