The reporting season was responsible for many of the more prominent share price movements in Europe yesterday, many of them downwards.
A notable exception was EADS, the European aerospace company formed by the merger of French, German and Spanish groups. Its shares surged 9 per cent to #23.70, their highest since they started trading in July.
Its first-half results released on Wednesday showed a robust outlook for Airbus Industries, in which EADS has an 80 per cent stake. Deutsche Bank raised its price target on the stock to #29 and Credit Lyonnais to #30.
But aluminium company Pechiney fell 1.6 per cent to #39.85, its lowest level in more than a year, after announcing that net profit for the third quarter was 36 per cent down on the same period last year.
Technology stocks closed mostly lower as the Nasdaq got off to its fourth poor start in a row. The aftermath of Nortel Networks' results continued to pressure the French telecom equipment maker Alcatel. It lost another 5.2 per cent to #70.50 in spite of announcing a deal to supply Orange, the mobile operator owned by France Telecom, wit h some of its global third-generation network which will bring in 1 billion of sales during the next three years.
Mobile phone maker Nokia closed off 4 per cent at #45.63 but rival Ericsson rose 3 per cent to SKr128.
French electrical equipment company Schneider fell almost 5 per cent to #68.35 after third-quarter results showed disappointing sales while speculation of a bid from Swiss-Swedish technology group ABB faded.
Its shares had risen 16 per cent last week on the speculation. Dresdner Kleinwort Benson cut its rating on Schneider from "add" to "hold" and Deutsche Bank downgraded it to "market perform".
In Germany, tech stocks Epcos and Infineon were down while Siemens was little changed at #142.65. Results helped push internet company Terra Networks down 7.3 per cent to #28.51, its first dip below #30 since soon after flotation in November last year. While revenues rose 185 per cent compared with the year before, EBITDA losses are still high, equivalent to 171 per cent of sales. Its takeover of US search engine Lycos faces a key vote today.
