Stockwatch Daily: Mixed early fortunes in London

Both the TechMark and FTSE 100 index rose marginally on opening, with the tech stocks up half of one per cent early on, and the FTSE up 11 points to 6,237. This follows falls for both indices yesterday, with the TechMark particularly badly hit - down over three per cent.

BT's share price bore the brunt of results indicating its debt mountain may be getting the better of it, falling four per cent by 09:00(GMT) to 653p. BT's share price is also reacting to a wider squeeze on telco stocks, hit by yesterday's downgrade of the flotation price for France Telecom's Orange, and poor results from Cisco in the US.

US exchanges were badly hit yesterday by networking specialist Cisco's poor results, as the company has consistently outperformed analysts expectations. The Nasdaq exchange was down over two per cent, with Cisco itself down 13 per cent to close at $31.06. Fellow networking companies Corning, JDS Uniphase, Lucent and Nortel Networks were also dragged down, along with tech firms such as Intel, Sun and Dell.