Madrid shares flat early afternoon; Telefonica off in line with Europe telecos

Madrid shares flat early afternoon; Telefonica off in line with Europe telecos

	Published : Tue, 23 Jan 2007 13:57 By : Agencies Print this Story

MADRID (AFX) - Share prices were flat in cautious early afternoon trade, with Telefonica falling in line with other European telecos, and also hit by a sharp drop in its Venezuelan affiliate CANTV, dealers said.

At 1.35 pm, the IBEX-35 index was off 9.9 points at 14.349.8, on volume of about 2.5 bln eur.

Equities opened little changed after overnight losses on Wall Street, but later turned into negative territory in cautious trade.

'Markets are very nervous,' said a Madrid-based trader. 'There's quite a lot of volume, which is kind of worrying ... could be building up for the long-awaited correction.'

Telefonica shed 0.10 eur to 16.58, in line with other leading telecoms, also hit by the slide in its CANTV affiliate late yesterday on news that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will not pay the market price for the telecoms company.

Builders were mixed, with FCC outperforming its peers to put on 0.95 to 79.30 amid news Inmocaral might increase its stake in the constructor to 20 pct from 15 pct.

Ferrovial was also in demand, putting on 0.05 to 73.80, after Deutsche Bank hiked its target price to 86.0 eur from 81.0.

ACS slipped 0.40 to 41.80, Acciona lost 1.80 to 149.20, and Sacyr Vallehermoso dropped 0.78 to 46.80.

Among utilities, Ree added 0.09 to 28.74 after Cheuvreux upgraded its stance to 'outperform' from 'underperform', while Union Fenosa was up 0.28 at 37.84, following an upgrade to 'buy' from 'sell' by Citigroup on valuation grounds..

Endesa rose 0.20 eur to 38.24, not immediately responding to news that a Spanish court has formally lifted the conditions on Gas Natural's proposed takeover of the utility.

NH Hoteles extended gains, up 0.37 or 2.23 pct at 16.93, after Citigroup raised its recommendation to 'buy' from 'hold, raising its price target to 19.60 eur from 15.0.

Among other major decliners, Metrovacesa dropped 2.30 to 123.30, while Iberia lost 0.06 to 3.04, extending losses on deflated sector M&A speculation.

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