Britain and Europe
It wasn't a good week for telecommunication, media and technology (TMT) shares. First they were shaken midweek when the freshly floated shares of mobile phone group Orange plunged about 8 percent in the first hour of trading. The lack of interest showed itself even though the share offer had been 2.6 times oversubscribed. Investors and competitors have closely monitored the Orange flotation (spun off from parent France Telecom) to gauge market interest for the badly bruised telecommunications sector. Technology stocks rebounded on the strength of the Nasdaq's midweek performance as once again the U.S. market influenced European trading. However, shocks reverberated when Nortel cut its earnings projections. All three indexes tracked here - London FTSE 100, Paris CAC, Frankfurt DAX - were down on the week, with most of the losses occurring on Friday. Overseas markets will be on their own Monday when U.S. markets are closed for the Presidents' Day holiday.

Asia
Asian stocks were not immune to the impact of Nortel's projections, which were released prior to Asian market trading on Friday. Japanese stocks fell led by fiber optics makers after the sector leader slashed its sales and profit forecasts, raising concern that demand for the industry is slowing. Earlier in the week, exporters shares fell after some investors interpreted comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to mean the U.S. central bank won't cut interest rates as much as they had hoped.

The Nikkei 225 stock average erased a 1.2 percent loss Wednesday on reports Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori may be forced to resign, boosting speculation what a new leader would revive the contracting economy.

Americas
What a tumultuous Friday for the Toronto Stock Exchange composite 300! Nortel sent a bolt of fear through the market and triggered a deep spiral. Shares of Nortel, which has the largest weighting (18 percent) in Canada's benchmark stock index, dropped 33 percent in Toronto trading. The TSE plummeted over 600 points on Friday's opening, taking other technology issues down with it. The TSE 300 last traded near this level on January 12, 2000, when it closed at 8359.96. When the dust settled, the TSE lost 6.3 percent on the week - virtually all of it on Friday.

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