Europe slightly down despite good technology performance

In mid-afternoon trading Wednesday in Europe, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 0.4 percent to 1,066.39. Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax fell 0.5 percent to 4,182.90. The CAC-40 in Paris was down 0.3 percent to 3,975.07.

This was despite good performance in the technology sector and positive earnings reports from Intel and Yahoo in the United States.

The pharmaceuticals sector was off, with Roche down 0.6 percent, Sanofi-Aventis off 0.4 percent, and Novartes, the Swiss drug company, down by 0.1 percent.

Novartes losses came partly due to a report of problems with their epilepsy drug but chiefly due to profit-taking after several days of gains.

In the technology sector, shares of Alcatel rose by 1.8 percent as a result of speculation that they were exploring the possibility of strengthening their ties to Thales, the defense electronics group. Alcatel, a French telecommunications group, already owns 9 percent of Thales.

ASML rose 2.3 percent, Infineon was up 0.7 percent, while STMicrolectronics advanced by 0.3 percent.

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