European stock markets ended the week lower on profit-taking and a string of negative recommendations from brokerages on Friday, dealers said.
London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares shed 0.42 percent to close at 5,711 points, the DAX in Frankfurt fell 1.07 percent to 5,483.09 points and the Paris CAC 40 slid 0.81 percent to 4,850.53.
The DJ Euro STOXX 50 index of leading eurozone shares was down 1.12 percent at 3,629.25 points.
European share prices hit their highest points this week for around four-and-a-half years on the back of Wall Street's recent rally.
The FTSE 100's Thursday close, at 5,735.1 points, had been the exchange's best finish since June 14, 2001.
But on Friday the London stock market was weighed down by brokerage downgrades on Vodafone, AstraZeneca, Shire Pharmaceuticals and Reed Elsevier.
Telecoms giant Vodafone, the most traded share of the day, lost 0.97 percent to 1.2750; pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca shed 1.40 percent to ?28.15; Shire Pharmaceuticals was off 4.0 percent at ?8.1650; and Reed Elsevier sank 2.10 percent to ?5.35.
Banking stocks, the heavyweights of the Footsie, also fell but mining and oil stocks bucked the trend, profiting from this week's commodity price rises.
In Paris, France Telecom continued to suffer from Wednesday's profit warning, with UBS downgrading the stock to "neutral" from "buy."
The telecoms operator lost 2.16 percent to 19.51 euros.
Telecoms equipment maker Alcatel was also downgraded and fell 1.95 percent to 11.05 euros.
Franco-British train operator Eurotunnel plummeted a massive 12.82 percent to 0.34 euros after saying there was no reason for its spectacular speculation-fuelled share price hike this week.
Energy group EDF, carmaker Renault and catering company Elior were the only gainers on the French blue-chip index. Elior added 2.39 percent to 75 euros after its chairman said he might buy out other shareholders, potentially strengthening Elior's chances of taking over British group SSP, analysts said.
Several corporate heavyweights in Frankfurt also suffered analysts' downgrades.
Insurer Allianz dropped 2.24 percent to 129.63 euros, Siemens lost 1.56 percent to 72.35 euros and Deutsche Bank slid 1.31 percent to 85.64 euros.
Automaker DaimlerChrysler slipped 1.47 percent to 45.06 euros. But the biggest loser of the day was car parts maker Continental, which lost 2.34 percent at 77.05 euros.
Other European markets ended mostly lower. The Brussels BEL 20 fell 0.11 percent to 3,672.04 points, Amsterdam's AEX fell 1.35 percent to 441.37, Milan's SP/MIB fell 1.08 percent to 36,265 and Madrid's IBEX 35 fell 0.96 percent to 10,850.7. The Swiss Market Index closed slightly up at 0.06 percent at 7,802.5 points.
On Wall Street the main indexes were nearly flat in mid-afternoon trading.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.01 percent at 10,961.14 points and the NASDAQ composite down 0.08 percent at 2,314.84. The broad-market Standard and Poor's 500 index edged up 0.04 point to 1,286.10.
In Asia, Tokyo's benchmark NIKKEI-225 index ended up 0.50 percent at 16,445.19 points, the best close since Sept. 20, 2000.
Hong Kong's key Hang Seng Index closed up 0.44 percent at 15,719.37 points.
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