Leading European stock markets closed modestly higher on Friday, bolstered by a recovery of the dollar against the euro, but gains were limited by renewed worries about surging oil prices.
The London FTSE 100 index ended flat with a gain of 0.02 percent at 4,933.3 points, the Frankfurt DAX 30 rose 0.27 percent to 4,327.58 and the Paris CAC 40 climbed 0.46 percent to 4,050.77.
The DJ Euro STOXX 50 index of leading eurozone shares advanced 0.45 percent to 3,053.54 points.
The euro stood at US$1.3212.
On Wall Street, by London's close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 7.50 points lower at 10,618.80, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite index was down 5.70 points at 2,010.72, with disappointing US data also weighing on sentiment.
The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index fell to 92.9 earlier this month from 94.1 last month, the third straight monthly decline, to the lowest reading since November.
Economists were expecting the index to rise to about 94.6.
In London, the modest blue-chip gain was mainly created by strength in heavyweight oil issues in reaction to surging crude prices, despite OPEC's move on Thursday to hike output.
BP rose 1.16 percent to ?5.65, Shell added 0.52 percent at ?4.85, and BG Group took on 1.26 percent at ?4.22. French oil group Total climbed 1.16 percent to 182.70 euros in Paris.
Corus shot up 3.13 percent to ?0.5775, topping the blue-chip gainers board, on bullish broker comment following the Anglo-Dutch steel group's positive annual results a day earlier.
Credit Suisse First Boston reiterated its "outperform" stance and lifted its target price to ?0.70, saying confidence was returning to Corus after it delivered its first annual profit since its birth in 1999, helped by strong global demand for steel last year.
Altana was the big blue-chip winner in Frankfurt, jumping 4.02 percent to 49.19 euros after the pharma company said it aimed to make acquisitions to strengthen its chemicals division, as a prelude to a possible spinoff.
Helaba Trust analyst Thomas Brenning said that, previously, the prospect of Altana adding to its chemicals portfolio had been considered negative. But the company's latest statement on the issue has helped switch sentiment around.
"Acquisitions are not such a big problem if the company can convince the market that [the transaction] is a smart one," he said.
German stock exchange operator Deutsche Boerse gained 1.15 percent to 58.21 euros after a newspaper report sparked speculation it planned a full-scale buyback program, which would effectively end its interest in the London Stock Exchange.
Elsewhere in Europe, the Swiss SMI slipped 0.26 percent to 5,929.0 points. The Amsterdam AEX rose 0.40 percent to 369.84 points, the Brussels BEL-20 climbed 0.49 percent to 3,090.94, the Madrid IBEX-35 added 0.30 percent at 9,263.9 and the Milan SP/MIB advanced 0.72 percent to 31,868.0.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts