European stock markets faltered at the end of the week Friday in the face of profit-taking and a lackluster opening on Wall Street.
The London FTSE 100 index, dragged down by telecoms and financial issues, gave up 1.34 percent to end the session at 4,257. In Paris the CAC 40 lost 1.21 percent to finish at 3,373.64, while in Frankfurt the DAX was off 0.92 percent at 3,578.7 at the end of the session.
The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 had fallen 1.04 percent by the end of the day to 2,532.99. The euro took advantage of a surge in the yen against the dollar and scored its own big gains against the greenback, trading at US$1.1342 in late-day deals against US$1.1256 in New York late on Thursday.
The market was choppy with index futures, index options and options on stocks all expiring, in what's called triple witching on Wall Street, which means more active trading as these investments must be redirected.
Trading was hesitant in the absence of fresh economic data, as Wall Street assessed the after-effects of Hurricane Isabel on the eastern seaboard.
In London, telecoms were under pressure following the sale by the Dutch government to Citigroup Global Markets of its interest in telecommunications operator KPN.
BT Group declined 1.9 percent to 181.5 while Vodafone gave up one percent to end the week at ?1.235.
Financial issues, after a strong showing earlier in the week, weakened on renewed fears about the durability of the US recovery.
Barclays was down 1.09 percent at 497.5. Lloyds TSB gave up 1.4 percent to finish at 433.
In Paris the electronics and defense group Thales fell 2.13 percent to 25.87 euros on a denial from the European defense concern EADS that it planned to acquire the group.
Automaker Renault gave up 3.58 percent to reach 56.50 euros after announcing the recall of 230,000 Laguna models for a mechanical problem.
Elsehwere in Europe, share prices fell 0.07 percent to 26,178 in Milan, 1.29 percent to 7,102.1 in Madrid, 1.06 percent to 334.82 in Amsterdam and 0.57 percent to 2,109.88 in Brussels.
The Swiss Market Index of London-quoted issues finished at 5,387.10 points, a loss of 0.65 percent.
Analysts surveyed by JCF Group in London forecast an increase of 42.3 percent in earnings per share for Stoxx 50 companies this year, compared with an 18.2 percent drop last year. Job cuts helped boost income an average 72 percent at the 35 Stoxx 50 companies that report second-quarter earnings.
"We expect European economic growth will come in the wake of growth in the US," said Guillaume Joncheres, head of equities at Credit Lyonnais Asset Management, with the equivalent of US$80 billion under management. "The US and European markets rebounded at the same time, but the amplitude in Europe was less. This difference should disappear, and Europe will benefit."
Bayer AG, Germany's second-largest drugmaker, jumped 4.9 percent this week after a US court on Wednesday denied class-action status for injury claims involving its withdrawn Baycol cholesterol drug.
The US District Court in Minneapolis ruled in favor of the Leverkusen, Germany-based company, which claimed a class-action case would have been "unmanageable."
That leaves Bayer free to negotiate settlements in individual cases. The company has won only two Baycol cases that went to trial.
Energy stocks fell this week, led by BP Plc and Royal Dutch Petroleum Co, as the price of crude oil slid after a Saudi Arabian official said OPEC probably won't change production quotas next week and the IMF said oil prices will decline by more than 10 percent next year, hurting revenue for producers.
The Stoxx 600's energy group was the week's only decliner of the 18 industry indexes.
BP, Europe's second-largest oil company, slipped 3.8 percent and Royal Dutch Petroleum, which owns 60 percent of Royal Dutch/Shell Group, lost 1.8 percent.
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