Many of Europe's bigger technology, media and telecoms companies bounced back yesterday, just like last Friday, as investors hoped that the falls this week had sufficiently de-rated the sectors and speculative investors closed out short positions ahead of the weekend.

Ian Scott of Lehman Brothers thought some of the upward pressure might also be coming from investors looking for an end-of-year rally, who would tend to favour the bigger stocks.

Business software group SAP rose 8 per cent to €160, Philips was up 7.9 per cent to €41 and Siemens rose 4.3 per cent to €136.30.

Deutsche Telekom, having fallen nearly 10 per cent over the last three days, rose 69 cents to €37.30, shrugging off a cut in its target price by Lehman Brothers. Among other telecoms, Sonera rose 7.8 per cent, Telefonica and Swisscom 3 per cent. Dutch cable company UPC added almost 4 per cent to €13.50.

But signs of nervousness remained. Norway cut the share price range for Monday's privatisation of Telenor, the state telecom, from NKr50-68 to NKr42-46.

Many Neuer Markt stocks continued to fall, although its index as a whole was up by more than 2 per cent. Deutsche Telekom's Internet service provider T-Online hit a new low of €15.40 before closing 3.3 per cent down at €16.15. Wednesday's announcement of a new head was not enough to overcome persistent concerns about its business mix.

German media group EM.TV & Merchandising fell almost 19 per cent to a low for the year after banking sources said it was going to cut its forecast for earnings in 2000.

Belgium's Interbrew, the world's number two brewer, made a positive start on its bourse debut, closing at €35.20, a healthy premium to the €33 offer price.

Steel stocks were in focus as Merrill Lynch upgraded its recommendation on Germany's Thyssen Krupp. The shares jumped 5.4 per cent to €15.50.