In Europe on Thursday, the telecommunications sector found itself mostly up at the end of the day, but steelmakers had lost ground.

Arcelor, Europe’s biggest steel maker, was down 1.4 percent to €16.22, Corus fell 1.6 percent, and ThyssenKrupp lost 1 percent to close at €14.39.

In the telecommunications sector, KPN, the Netherlands’ biggest telecommunications company, rose by 1.5 percent to €6.94 on the announcement that it has proposed a *1.12 billion takeover of its domestic rival, Telfort.

France Telecom was up 1.5 percent to €24.16 after it had advanced by 5.3 percent on Wednesday. Deutsche Telecom rose 1.4 percent to €15.30, Telecom Italia was up 1.5 percent to €2.5875, and Telia Sonera added 3 percent to SKr37.30.

In equities markets around Europe, CAC 40 was down 0.06 percent to 4,229.35 in Paris. Xetra Dax was up by 0.06 percent to close at 4,586.28. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 fell 0.2 percent to 1,141.39.

This close, however, put the eurozone-wide index up 9.6 percent for the first half of the year. Meanwhile in London, the FTSE 100 gained 4.1 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 5,113.4.

However, it had been up 30 points only 90 minutes before the close. The FTSE 250 closed at 7,368.7. Both London indexes have grown 6.2 percent since the beginning of the year. Volume was heavy in London on Thursday at 3.5 billion shares traded.