Helsinki shares close lower, led down by Nokia on Ericsson warning

Helsinki shares close lower, led down by Nokia on Ericsson warning - UPDATE

	Published : Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:36 By : Agencies Print this Story

(Updates with full report)

HELSINKI (Thomson Financial) - Helsinki shares closed lower led down by Nokia following a profit-warning by Ericsson, the world's biggest telecoms infrastructure group and a rival to its Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) venture.

The OMX Helsinki 25 index ended down 0.90 pct at 3,210.56 and the OMX Helsinki all-share index closed 1.54 pct lower at 11,817.85. Volume was a heavy 2.827 bln eur.

Nokia closed down 3.24 pct at 24.80 eur.

Ericsson slashed its third and fourth quarter earnings and margins guidance due to a shortfall in revenues from mobile networks.

The announcement saw Ericsson lose almost a quarter of its market value in Stockholm trade, but analysts insisted it was not a big deal for Nokia.

'This is not a huge issue as Nokia Siemens Networks is already expected to post a loss, including one-off charges which should affect both parent companies (Nokia and Siemens),' said a London-based trader.

Janne Rantanen, analyst at Carnegie in Helsinki, said: 'We all know that NSN has been struggling, Nokia has been admitting that for quite some time already.'

'It's mainly about Ericsson, which had been keeping up hopes that it would be unaffected by the market competition. But now it seems that the number one is hurt.'

Nokia fell in the two previous sessions, dented by broader equity selling and nervousness ahead of the handset maker's third-quarter results due out Thursday.

The rest of the leaderboard was mostly in the red, with TietoEnator -- down 4.39 pct at 16.10 eur -- and Cargotec --down 2.92 pct at 34.85 eur -- among the biggest fallers.

Elisa fell 5.22 pct to 21.25 eur, but was trading ex-dividend for 1 eur a share.

Forestry stocks closed firmer after sharp falls yesterday on the back of UPM-Kymmene's profit-warning yesterday.

UPM-Kymmene ended up 0.49 pct at 14.47 eur and Stora Enso R 0.60 pct higher at 11.77 eur.

Utility Fortum ended up 2.45 pct at 27.60 eur, while Neste Oil finished 0.16 pct lower at 24.91 eur.

Neste Oil said said nobody was hurt in a fire that broke out in the harbour area of its refinery in Naantali today.

A spokesman said the fire has been put out and did not have any impact on logistics or production at the site.

Elsewhere, Outotec finished 0.84 pct lighter at 49.58 eur.

Outotec said it has won a contract worth more than 30 mln eur to supply technology for a copper-gold concentrator plant from Hellas Gold.

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Helsinki shares close lower, led down by Nokia on Ericsson warning - UPDATE