In Europe on Tuesday, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 dropped 0.6 percent to 1,366.20. Among the influences sending stocks lower was new data showing German investor sentiment lower, a slow start in the New York markets, and a state of emergency that was declared in Thailand due to an attempted coup there.
The telecommunications sector was in the news during the session. Telecom Italia dropped 1.4 percent to €2.17 on the news that its unions have called a strike for October 3 to protest TI’s restructuring. Also hurting the Italian telecom’s share price was a broker downgrade from Morgan Stanley, which lowered TI’s rating from “equal weight” to “underweight” and dropped its target share price from €2.50 to €2.10.
Elsewhere, the telecoms were more successful. Deutsche Telekom overcame the news of the German confidence decline to add 0.2 percent to €11.71. Morgan Stanley issued an upgrade from “equal weight” to “overweight” and set its target share price at €13.10. Sonaecom gained 4.9 percent to €5.19 as investors hoped that the Portuguese government will allow it’s hostile bid for Portugal Telecom, which was 0.4 percent higher to €9.79, to go forward.
The semiconductors sector was lower on the session even though both Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank issued positive comments. STMicroelectronics dropped 0.5 percent to €13.11, while Infineon declined by 1.4 percent to €9.61.