European stock markets ended mixed after a turbulent session on Friday as a profit warning from Intel Corp and concerns over global interest rates were offset by a rally from the UK's top two telecommunications companies, BT Group and Vodafone Group.
The German DAX 30 declined 1.1 percent at 5,721, the French CAC 40 eased 0.40 percent at 4,989 while the UK's FTSE 100 rose 0.44 percent at 5,858.
The German stock market in particular saw declines on rising rate fears in the US, Europe and Japan, with that market full of exporters such as Siemens AG, Bayer and DaimlerChrysler.
Chipmakers including STMicroelectronics and Philips Electronics closed lower after the profit warning from Intel, though Infineon Technologies ended in positive territory.
Also higher was Vodafone Group, which jumped 8.5 percent after saying late in the session it's in talks to sell its loss-making Japanese arm to Softbank. Vodafone has struggled to turn around the unit, which is the No. 3 player in the country.
UK fixed-line giant BT Group surged 6 percent after the Times of London reported that it may be a bid target for private-equity firms that could value the company at £20 billion (US$35 billion). BT said it's not in talks with any private-equity bidders.
Adecco SA, the Switzerland-based staffing giant, reversed early losses to trade 1.5 percent higher.
Fortis Bank, which released results early because a briefcase with the draft results was stolen, fell 1.7 percent after it said annual profit rose 32 percent, or up 45 percent when excluding divestments. Its fourth-quarter results before divestments climbed 24 percent.
Carrefour, Danone and Societe Generale all declined after they were reported to have been included on a list of "national champions" that the French government wants to protect from hostile takeovers.
Publicis, the French advertising firm, advanced 0.3 percent after reporting a 39 percent rise in annual profit, at the top end of analyst forecasts. Net new business for the year was US$9.8 billion, which the company said was the highest figure ever recorded in the worldwide advertising industry.
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