Stockwatch Daily: Shaky start on Europe's markets

London's benchmark FTSE100 index was down 0.1 per cent, Germany's DAX down 0.2 per cent and the Paris CAC 40 fell 0.5 per cent on opening. The FTSE TechMark index of leading UK technology companies rose 0.2 per cent.

Pushing the tech sector up were gains for accounting software company Sage, up four per cent, and chipmaker ARM, rising three per cent. This was despite falls for telcos Vodafone, down 0.5 per cent, and BT, one of the day's biggest losers, down 4.5 per cent.

Today's market ambivalence follows a UK bank holiday on Monday which saw small falls on US markets. The tech-heavy Nasdaq exchange slipped 18 points, just under one per cent, and the Dow Jones Index also suffered. Bellwether Cisco led the move downward, falling two per cent, among others including database vendor Oracle, infrastructure player Sun Microsystems and chipmaker Transmeta.