Broadcast 12th October 2000

	Listen to analysis by Richard Hudson

Investors who have been watching the value of their technology stocks steadily fall over the last few months have had more bad news. Motorola has said the boom in mobile phone sales seems to be petering out. There are fears that the market is approaching saturation point.

The efforts of mobile phone companies to convince people to use their phones for things other than talking, like using the internet, has met with a muted response.

In Britain confidence in the internet has received a dent after a watchdog discovered that buying goods over the web can be a frustrating and disappointing experience. About a third of companies sampled failed to deliver the quality of goods promised within the stated time, some failed to deliver at all.

Richard Hudson, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe, has been following just some of the latest casualties:

"Well a rout is what has been happening. The approximate cause was that on Wednesday, Motorola announced that it was going to cut its earnings forecast for the fourth quarter.

The approximate cause was that on Wednesday, Motorola announced that it was going to cut its earnings forecast for the fourth quarter. Richard Hudson

"This is a company that is the third biggest manufacturer of mobile phones in the world among other things, and this touched off a huge sell-off in technology stocks in Europe and the United States.

"Motorola’s own stock price tumbled 18 per cent in Europe in sympathy with that. Its competitors Ericson and Nokia also fell, then Lucent, the blood bath continued.

"Lucent, a telecommunications equipment maker in the United States, announced a profit drop and its stock tumbled 31 per cent and, that rippled through the stocks of the European companies, Alcatel was off nine per cent. In any case technology stocks in Europe fell 5.5 per cent overall on Wednesday.

"Since September what has been going on is sheer mayhem in technology stocks down 37 per cent on the NASDAQ overall since September."

We are officially in a bare market for technology stocks. Richard Hudson