European stock markets fell on Friday as investors banked profits at the end of a strong first quarter, dealers said.
London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares dropped by 0.84 percent to 5,964.6 points, Frankfurt's DAX 30 fell 0.24 percent to 5,970.08 points and in Paris the CAC 40 slipped 0.37 percent to 5,220.85 points.
The DJ Euro STOXX 50 index of leading eurozone shares decreased by 0.54 percent to 3,853.74 points.
As European markets closed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had gained 0.23 percent to 11,176.87 points in New York.
The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite index was up 0.21 percent at 2,345.75.
The broad Standard & Poor's index showed a slight gain of 0.09 percent to 1,301.39.
European markets, especially London, have posted gains during the first quarter on strong company earnings and takeover activity. On March 24 the FTSE 100 closed at 6,036.30 points, its highest finish since Feb. 19, 2001.
In London on Friday, heavyweight mining stocks fell on profit-taking. One day earlier, mining shares had soared as metals prices, including platinum, copper and zinc, hit historic high points on strong buying by speculative funds.
Mining giant Rio Tinto fell back 1.98 percent and rival Anglo American lost 1.16 percent.
Tate and Lyle, Europe's biggest sugar refiner, dropped 1.33 percent after Deutsche Bank cut its price target on the food manufacturer owing to a mixed trading update earlier in the week.
ITV, the biggest British commercial television network, plunged 4.6 percent after it rejected an improved takeover offer from a consortium comprising the private equity groups Apax and Blackstone, and the US investment bank Goldman Sachs.
The new bid had valued ITV at about £5.3 billion (US$9.2 billion). ITV had on March 22 rejected an initial bid by the consortium worth about £4.9 billion.
In Frankfurt, the German stock market operator Deutsche Boerse dipped 0.52 percent to 119.01 euros after its supervisory board had said late on Thursday that it welcomed the decision of its management board to launch concrete talks with Euronext on a potential merger.
Deutsche Boerse said on March 15 that it was interested in a merger of equals with Euronext, which operates the Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Madrid exchanges. Euronext gained 3.34 percent to 68.05 euros in Paris tradin.
In Amsterdam, the AEX index was off by 0.82 percent at 468.69, the Swiss SMI slipped by 0.15 percent to 8,023.3, in Milan the SP/MIB shed 0.73 percent to 37,928, in Madrid the IBEX-35 edged 0.13 percent lower to 11,854.3 and in Brussels the BEL-20 closed down 0.76 percent at 3,912.28.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by