European bourses ended the week more or less where they started it after the US employment data led to cautious trading in yesterday's final session.
Paris recovered much of the previous session's 2.7 per cent setback following a broad rally for technology leaders. In moderate trading volumes, the CAC-40 index ended at 6,461.35, up 106.4 on the day and 0.7 per cent on the week.
France Telecom rose €4.90 to €136.3 and Equant, down 7.1 per cent on Thursday, regained €1.19 to €41.50. STMicroelectronics improved €2.50 to €59.60. In each case, trading volumes were unexciting.
Societe Generale also rallied, clawing back part of Thursday's near 10 per cent slide amid conflicting broker comments. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter reduced the bank's shares to "neutral" from "outperform" and said it was time to take profits, while Lehman Brothers took a more bullish stance, lifting its target price to €70.
SocGen ended 10 cents better at €63.35. BNP Paribas rose €2.90 to €106.20 and Credit Lyonnais €1 to €46.50. Insurance leader Axa added €4.80 at €169.20.
Frankfurt traded narrowly, with technology leaders little changed after a volatile session.
After heavy selling on Thursday, which sent the stock down 15.5 per cent, Epcos shed a further 29 cents to €90. Siemens lost 24 cents at €158.26, but business software group SAP gained €7.55 to €243.80.
Deutsche Telekom also rallied in spite of reports that the group's plans to expand within the Italian mobile phone market had received a significant setback. The shares added 75 cents at €46.04.
The Xetra DAX index was up 2.96 at 7,040.87 at 5.30 p.m. German time.
Amsterdam rose 6.70 to 673.45 on the AEX index after a strong run for Aegon ahead of next week's results statement and a rally at Philips.
Aegon, something of a laggard among Dutch financials this year, jumped €1.67, or 4.1 per cent, to €42.70 in 8.3 million shares traded amid speculation that next week's six-month results will be well ahead of broker expectations.
Philips was again heavily traded, with 17.4 million shares changing hands to lift total volume over the past two sessions to 45.8 million. The stock, off 7.4 per cent on Thursday, rose €1.13 to €46.22.
