European stocks fell this month, sending the Dow Jones Stoxx 50 Index to its biggest January drop ever. Lloyds TSB Group Plc and Nokia Oyj were among the worst performers, driven lower on concern a possible US-led attack on Iraq may slow economic and profit growth.
"The war is hanging over the market," said Ludger Vossenberg, who helps manage about 8 billion euros (US$8.7 billion) at SEB Invest GmbH in Frankfurt. "That is the poison that is driving down" stocks.
The Dow Jones Stoxx 50 Index added 0.2 percent to 2,237.74 as of 7:28pm in London, cutting its slump this month to 7.1 percent. The Stoxx 600 Index rose 0.3 percent to 189, trimming this year's slide to 6.3 percent. Both indexes posted their worst January since calculations began in 1987.
Benchmarks rose in 11 of Western Europe's 17 markets, led by the Belgian Bel20 Index's 2.6 percent climb. Germany's DAX Index gained 1.9 percent, France's CAC 40 Index added 0.8 percent, and the UK FTSE 100 index dropped 0.3 percent. Eleven Stoxx 600 shares declined for every 10 that advanced.
Lloyds TSB, Britain's fifth-largest bank, dropped 1.6 percent to 379 pence. Nokia, the world's largest mobile-phone maker, fell 5.8 percent to 13.08 euros. Lloyds TSB shed 15 percent in January and Nokia slid 14 percent, among the Stoxx 50's 10 biggest losses.
Equities probably won't recover until ``the current risk factors are removed,'' said Bob Parker, deputy chairman of Credit Suisse Asset Management, which has US$303 billion under management.
He's concerned that crude oil above US$30 a barrel will slow profit growth and the dollar's decline to near a 3 1/2-year low against the euro will erode exporters' sales.
The Stoxx 50 rebounded during the afternoon from a loss of as much as 2.4 percent, lifted by utility shares as E.ON AG reached a last-minute settlement that cleared the way for its takeover of Ruhrgas AG and Suez SA said sales rose.
Axa SA dropped as Moody's Investors Service said it's concerned about the effect of slumping share prices on the insurer's profitability.
E.ON, Europe's second-largest utility, rose 4.5 percent to 42.25 euros. The company persuaded nine opponents to drop their legal appeals to its 10.7 billion-euro (US$11.6 billion) purchase of Germany's biggest natural-gas distributor, ending the country's biggest antitrust battle since World War II.
Tendered shares of Degussa AG, the world's biggest specialty-chemical maker, gained 8.8 percent to 37.80 euros. The stock, which has jumped 36 percent since Wednesday's close, was placed in a special pool after owners in June accepted coal miner RAG AG's offer to buy the company.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained