By Anna Peltola
STOCKHOLM, July 22 (Reuters) - Nordic stocks tumbled almost across the board on Monday, led by a 20 percent plunge for diabetes care heavyweight Novo Nordisk but telecoms major Ericsson , the main victim of Friday's bloodbath, recovered.
Among second-tier stocks in the news after the release of interim earnings, industrial conglomerate Norsk Hydro fell while steel group SSAB and aluminium profiles maker Sapa traded flat.
The Stoxx Nordic index , down some 39 percent so far this year, was 3.3 percent in the red but off the morning's record lows at 1230 GMT. It lagged the Eurotop-300 index by more than one percentage point.
Turnover remained thin with many market players on summer holidays and other investors sidelined licking their wounds.
"There's nothing new under the sun. The market is still on its way down, and I think it will continue to slide until something new happens," said one broker in Sweden, home to the worst performing stock market in a G10 country so far this year.
Stockholm's blue-chip OMX index , now trading around 532 points, could well fall to 500 before a bounce, the broker said.
Copenhagen blue-chip Novo Nordisk sank to lows last seen more than two and a half years ago after the company said it would suspend development of a product seen by analysts as a potential future sales growth driver.
BAD NEWS
"It's clearly bad news for the company and it will have an adverse effect on the company's sales and earnings from 2005 and on," Nordea Securities analyst Henrik Simonsen said.
Norsk Hydro shares were down 4.3 percent at nine-month lows after the firm, the world's number three aluminium maker, said the outlook was weak and the strength of the crown would work against it in future quarters.
Ericsson, which fell 18 percent on Friday after it posted a loss for the seventh quarter in a row, reported weak order inflow, downgraded its forecasts and unveiled the terms of its $3.25 billion rights issue, ticked up 0.8 percent.
The share appeared unperturbed by UBS Warburg cutting its target price to 11 crowns or by West LB Panmure revising its 2003 result forecast to a loss from a profit.
Ericsson rival Nokia , however, was 2.2 percent in the red but well off morning lows.
Among forestries, hit by the dollar's fall and the euro's appreciation the world's biggest paper and board maker Stora Enso , which is to report interim results on Wednesday, fell 2.9 percent to 10-month lows.
Brokers say forestry stocks are set to fall whatever the companies' results, considering their strong performance in the past year when techs have tumbled.
"Sentiment is playing quite a big role at the moment," said analyst Henry Nurminen at Mandatum Stockbrokers.
"The drop in the last few weeks has been blamed on the weaker U.S. dollar, but I would not say that there is enough negative fundamentals news to justify this," he said.
Mandatum has a "positive" rating on the sector.
(Additional reporting by Helsinki newsroom, Copenhagen newsroom, Oslo newsroom)