Financial markets continued on Friday to feel the aftershock of the Spanish train bombs which killed nearly 200 people but investors' gloom showed signs of lifting, buoyed by hopes about economic growth.
European stocks clawed back territory lost during the day to stand flat, while Wall Street looked set to open stronger and the dollar shrugged off security fears to stand higher against major currencies.
Investors' hopes that economic recovery is on its way were boosted by data showing the US current account deficit narrowed unexpectedly in the final three months of 2003, helping European stocks recover from two-month lows.
"Even though we have seen a huge rally [in stocks] over the past year we are still below levels on Sept. 11, 2001 when we were in the middle of a recession," said Roger Hornett, chief executive and global strategist at Gilissen Securities in London.
Improving
"The economic backdrop has clearly improved since then. We are seeing huge gains in productivity in the United States and this will eventually turn into a rise in jobs."
The bombings of four packed commuter trains in Madrid killed at least 198 people on Thursday and injured around 1,430 in Europe's bloodiest guerrilla attack for more than 15 years.
Spain has blamed Basque separatist group ETA for the carnage, but a group allied to al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility and said it is planning a major attack on the US.
Equity investors had been cautious before the Madrid bombs, worried about US job growth lagging expectations and the US trade and budget deficits.
The next pointer to the state of the world's largest economy is due today when The University of Michigan publishes its preliminary consumer sentiment index for March.
The FTSE Eurotop 300 index of pan-European blue chips was flat yesterday at 986.80 points, while the narrower DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index had fallen 0.15 percent to 2,829 points.
Earlier Asian shares closed down with Japan's Nikkei 225 down 1.2 percent at 11,162.7. A pan-Asian index of shares outside Japan was down 1.1 percent.
Euro zone government bond yields fell on Friday as investors ploughed into safe haven assets.
"All this uncertainty has boosted the risk premium of assets like Bunds," said a trader in London.
Gains trimmed
The two-year Schatz yield trimmed gains to trade down 1.3 basis points at 2.158 percent. The 10-year Bund yield was down 1.6 basis points at 3.9 percent.
The dollar shrugged off increased security fears. It was trading at US$1.2233 per euro, up 0.7 percent from the US close. It was up 0.4 percent against the yen at 111.30 and up sharply against the British pound, the Swiss franc and the Australian dollar.
Crude oil futures rose 14 cents to US$32.97 on security worries but safe-haven gold was down at US$397.80/US$398.50 against its New York close at US$402.25/$403.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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