London: European share prices slumped on Wednesday morning, with telecoms stocks leading the way following vertiginous gains on Tuesday, amid renewed fears about corporate results. Telecoms and technology stocks were unsettled by disappointing earnings news from Canadian telecoms giant Nortel Networks and US computer company Compaq, and a profit warning from chip-maker National Semiconductor.The news drove the Nasdaq index down 1.4 per cent, and sentiment filtered through to Europe. "It's nothing major, just movements dictated by Nasdaq yesterday and the problems with Nortel," said one broker in Paris. "There is profit-taking on technology stocks which is fair enough following their sharp jump" on Tuesday.
In London, the FTSE 100 index gave up 78.0 points, 1.2 per cent, to 6,360.4 points. The Paris market also shed 1.2 per cent, as the CAC 40 slipped to 6,247.3 points, while in Frankfurt, the DAX index fell 0.7 per cent to 6,755.89 points. The 11-nation euro-zone Euro Stoxx 50 index fell 0.66 per cent.
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