Weakness on Wall Street and in the dollar depressed Frankfurt, where the Xetra DAX index registered a fall of 151.38 or 3.1 per cent at 4,797.13 by the end of electronic trade. Russia's tribulations remained a drag on the banks. Dresdner, which said its unsecured loans to Russia totalled 1 billion deutschmarks, fell DM5.08 to DM72.10. Commerzbank gave up DM2.30 to DM50.55 and Deutsche Bank was DM5.90 lower at DM107.10.

BMW was a big loser among the cars, down DM80 to DM1,201 as the Quandt family, a major shareholder, dismissed speculation it planned to change its equity holding in the company.

Against the trend, Deutsche Telekom picked up DM1.05 to DM50.30 amid speculation that Microsoft was interested in its cable television business.

Amsterdam moved steeply lower in heavy volume amid rumours that a number of option traders had run into difficulties. The AEX index ended off 30.43 or 2.8 per cent at 1,069.83.

Philips shed 5.60 guilders to Fl 123, while among financials ABN-Amro lost Fl 3 or 6.4 per cent to Fl 43.80 in 15.3 million shares traded. But the big faller was telecoms group KPN, which ran into a squall of tariff reduction concerns.

A press conference planned for today by Opta, the Dutch telecoms regulator, is expected to announce a range of price cuts. KPN fell Fl 7.10 to Fl 74 in 5.9 million shares traded to extend its decline to 16 per cent in two days.

Royal Dutch pushed ahead to Fl 92 on news of its European refining alliance with Texaco of the US, but fell back in late trading. The stock, heavily dealt at 9.3 million shares, closed off 10 cents at Fl 88.60.

Paris fell 2.2 per cent on the CAC-40 index with the banks again under pressure and Renault and Peugeot both falling more than 5 per cent.