European stock markets closed higher on Friday as investors welcomed easing concerns over Hurricane Rita's potential impact and after Wall Street bounced off earlier lows.
In London, the FTSE 100 index gained 0.52 percent at 5,413.6 points, while the Frankfurt DAX 30 added 0.69 percent at 4,882.58 and the Paris CAC 40 rose 0.65 percent to 4,477.20.
The DJ Euro STOXX 50 index of leading eurozone shares climbed 0.58 percent to 3,331.55.
The euro stood at US$1.2076.
On Wall Street, the major indices remained in the red following bleak newsflow from Oracle and Alcoa, but off earlier lows as crude prices fell.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 23.4 points at 10,398.6, while the NASDAQ was off 1.94 at 2,108.84.
World oil prices dipped on Friday after Hurricane Rita weakened further and looked set to spare major US refineries in Texas, analysts said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, shed US$1.80 to US$64.70 per barrel in early trading.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for November delivery lost US$1.66 to US$62.94 per barrel.
Hurricane Rita, which put considerable pressure on oil prices and insurance issues for most of this week, was downgraded overnight to a category-four storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
In Frankfurt, reinsurance giant Munich Re surged 1.39 percent to 90.0 euros and insurer Allianz gained 1.27 percent at 104.41 euros.
In Paris, shares in the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company jumped 2.9 percent to 28.64 euros.
EADS' Airbus unit said on Thursday it aims for 1.5 billion euros of cost savings by 2010, in order to counter rising competition and the negative impact of the dollar's weakness against the euro.
PSA Peugeot Citroen, the second-biggest auto manufacturer in Europe after Volkswagen, shot up 2.79 percent to 53.50 euros in Paris after a broker upgrade from Merrill Lynch.
In London, tobacco shares fueled blue-chip gains.
Imperial Tobacco surged 3.23 percent to £159,70, taking the top spot in the FTSE 100 leaderboard, as investors welcomed the group's plans to transfer production of 10 billion cigarettes from Germany to Poland as part of the ongoing restructuring of its manufacturing operations.
Imperial helped lift the sector. BAT added 1.53 percent at £121,70 and Gallaher rose 1.04 percent to £87,40.
Elsewhere in Europe, the Swiss Market Index added 0.74 percent at 6,785.53.
The Amsterdam AEX rose 0.18 percent to 394.33, the Brussels BEL-20 gained 0.34 percent at 3,298.14. The Madrid IBEX-35 advanced 0.90 percent to 10,631.2 and the Milan SP/MIB edged up 0.17 percent to 34,238.0.
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
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