European stock markets closed mainly lower on Friday, as news of a US insurance probe expected to extend to European insurers offset a rebound in US indices, dealers said.
The London FTSE 100 index gave up 0.14 percent to close at 4,622.7 points, the Frankfurt DAX 30 dropped 0.47 percent to 3,922.11 points, but the Paris CAC 40 bucked the trend to climb 0.16 percent to 3,670.76 points.
The DJ Euro STOXX 50 index of leading eurozone shares lost 0.11 percent at 2,773.03 points.
The euro stood at US$1.2481.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 32.67 points at 9,926.97, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite was 2.53 points higher at 1,90.55.
Insurance stocks across Europe were deeply entrenched in the red, following the dismal performance by Wall Street peers after New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on Thursday charged the US' largest insurance broker Marsh and McLennan with directing business to insurance companies for illegal payoffs.
Spitzer said Munich-American, a unit of Munich Re's American Re, is among the companies under investigation. American Re said it was not a defendant but is cooperating with the probe.
Dealers expected this investigation to eventually take in most European names with US non-life exposure, with Royal and Sun Alliance one of the British names thought to be most at risk.
Dealers also claimed Barclays has large holdings in Marsh and AIG, and the drop in the share prices of the US group saw the value of Barclays' holdings drop by US$929 million.
In London, Royal and Sun Alliance was the biggest blue-chip loser, falling 2.30 percent to £0.745. Aviva lost 1.62 percent at £5.4650 and Prudential dropped 1.81 percent to £4.6225.
Elsewhere in Europe, the Swiss SMI index slid 0.74 percent to 5,362.4 points, the Amsterdam AEX shed 0.24 percent at 327.94, the Brussels BEL-20 dipped 0.15 percent to 2,743.56 and the Milan MIB-30 lost 0.11 percent at 28,493.0. In Madrid, the IBEX-35 eked out a 0.07-percent gain to finish at 8,261.1.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six