L’Oreal, the French cosmetics group, saw its shares decline 5.6 percent in midday trading on Friday after it issued a disappointing first-quarter earnings report at the end of trading on Thursday. This report caused almost all analysts to downgrade L’Oreal’s stock.

In the biotechnology sector, Serono also released a negative first-quarter earnings report. Its shares were down 5.2 percent at midday. On the other hand, Solvay, the Belgian chemicals and drug company, was up 2.2 percent after Citigroup upgraded it from “hold” to “buy.” Just last week, Merrill Lynch had downgraded Solvay to “sell.”

There was also positive news from Ericsson in the form of a report that their first-quarter earnings had exceeded expectations. Ericsson’s shares were up 4.3 percent on that news, and other technology stocks followed suit. Nokia was up 1.9 percent, STMicroelectronics was up 1.9 percent, ASML rose 1 percent, and Siemens added 1.3 percent.

All of this combined to see FTSE Eurofirst advance by 0.6 percent to 1,070.04, the Xetra Dax in Frankfurt to rise by 0.6 percent to 4,217.27, and the CAC-40 in Paris to rise by 0.5 percent to 3,970.54.