Monday European TMT market roundup

The FTSE 100 closed up 30 points, at 6,365; while the FTSE All Share was up 13 points to 3,062. The techMARK gained 9 points to close at 3,636; while AIM had a bad day, closing down by 10 points at 1,693.

The day's best performer was meanfiddler.com, the AIM-listed portal for music enthusiasts, which soared by 37% on a volume of 3.65m after the Sunday Times tipped it as a ‘buy'. Gaming Internet, the AIM-listed gaming and sports content site, also rose substantially, gaining 20.9% to close at 20.25p.

IMS, the telecoms and internet services company that last week announced profits of 2.1m as a result of the 3.1m profit gained through the demerger of Teamtalk, also rose by nearly 21%, as a number of institutional investors, including the Prudential upped their stakes.

Thus, the telecoms and internet group in which ScottishPower has a 50.1% stake, was the day's worst faller, losing more than 30% after reporting losses of 8.7m for the quarter to 31 June 2000, having achieved profits of 1.7m for the same period of the previous year. Analysts slammed the company's reliance on premium rate ‘phone lines, which are considered unreliable and highly commoditised, and accounted for a fall in revenues of more than 2m. Thus' Demon ISP service also contributed to a weak growth in its internet operations, as gains made through business users were offset by consumers switching to more competitive free access ISPs. As a result, Thus fell by 67p to close at 153p, on a volume of more than 20m.

The loss of confidence in Thus' strategy impacted on its closest competitor, Energis, which also lost more than 10%.

Forbidden Technology, which develops technology for the distribution of video via the internet, continued with the downward trend that it has suffered since it indicated last week that it had made a breakthrough and was moving on to the next phase of testing. Last Monday, the stock soared on the news, but investors have since been hit by a sense of anti-climax as the vagueness of the statement has hit home. Steep gains achieved on Monday have been more than offset by daily losses since. Today, the company fell by 14% to close at 180p, having climbed to more than 250p last week.

Also falling significantly today, were lastminute.com, closing down nearly 12%; media@invest, which fell by nearly 11%; and hosting and domain names company Virtual Internet, which lost more than 12.5%.

MAINLAND EUROPE: The TMT-rich ‘new markets' of mainland Europe opened the week in a more optimistic mood than on their close last Friday.

In Paris, the Nouveau Marche managed a tiny gain of 0.3% to close at 3776.1, while in Milan, the Nuovo Mercato pushed up towards the psychologically important 7,000 mark with a gain of 2.5, which took the index to 6,975, after strong gains by ISP Tiscali, up 4.3% to EU49.2 on a volume of 315,000.

The main news on the Paris Nouveau Marche centred around web development company Integra, which reported strong Q2 results showing revenues up 759% to EU13.7m compared to the same quarter the previous year. Despite this, the company's share price registered only moderate gains, closing up just under 2% at EU13.5 on a volume of 122,000, after dropping some hefty gains in afternoon trading.

The Neuer Markt also started the week positively, closing up 0.6% at 5,255.2.

Data broadcasting software company Fantastic Corporation - one of last week's biggest fallers among TMT stock - was back in favour as bargain hunters stepped in, closing the day up 10.4% at EU7.84 on a volume of just under 1m. Soon to be merged with the LSE's QXL.com online auctions company Ricardo.de was also among the day's good performers, gaining 8.6% to close at EU42.25 on a volume 25,630.

Biotech stocks were by far the majority among the Neuer Markts worst performing stocks, but a couple of internet-related stocks also put in an appearance among the bottom 10. Art website Artnet.com, which lost just under 10% to close at EU7.1 on a volume of 17,000, was followed by online information and entertainment content and services company E.Multi Digitale, which fell by 9.2% to close at EU12.3%.

The day also saw the successful Neuer Markt debut of photonics company, Advanced Photonics, which closed the day at EU24.3 after opening at EU21.02 and reaching a high of EU24.8 in strong trading, especially in the morning.

The overall, positive - if not enthusiastic - mood on the new markets of mainland Europe boosted the EuroNM All Share index, which closed up 0.8% at 4754.1.

European reporting by : Niki Panourgias