Life Insurance

FRANKFURT (AFX) - Shares were flat in midday trade after yesterday's solid rally, following profit-taking on Wall Street overnight and some mixed US and European earnings, as investors brace themselves for an extremely busy rest of the week in terms of German quarterly results, dealers said.

'The market is flat on the back of yesterday's performance on Wall Street and following weak figures from Dell and excellent results from UBS,' one dealer said.

Meanwhile, investors have two extremely busy days ahead as no less than 11 DAX components are reporting quarterly results on Wednesday and Thursday.

Deutsche Boerse was the best performer, adding 1.55 eur or 1.97 pct to 80.05, on the back of expectations of strong third quarter earnings on Monday, and as fears the exchange operator could launch another bid for the LSE further faded following a ruling from the UK Competition Commission.

Altana was also in positive territory, gaining 0.69 to 47.69, on fresh speculation over the future of its pharmaceutical operations, after Handelsblatt newspaper reported that Novartis AG is in talks to acquire the unit.

Banks were a bright feature, with Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank rising 0.06 to 78.19 and 0.14 to 21.98 respectively, after Swiss peer UBS posted far better-than-expected third quarter results.

Tech stocks were generally lower, following a disappointing trading update from Dell, with Infineon falling 0.03 to 7.77 and SAP slipping 0.68 to 142.02.

Linde dipped 0.32 to 59.12, as Exane downgraded the stock to 'underperform' from 'neutral', and as Lehman Brothers reiterated its 'underweight' rating on the issue, adding that it regards it as expensive and that it prefers shares in Air Liquide.

However, the broker also raised its price target on Linde shares to 53 eur from 52, following the conglomerate's third-quarter results yesterday, to reflect a better order book and a better currency scenario.

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