European stock exchanges were generally stronger on Friday, although the London FTSE 100 index slipped at the close after at one point hitting its highest level in five-and-a-half years.
The FTSE fell 0.01 percent to 6,155.20 points after soaring to 6,199.80 during the day. In Paris the CAC 40 gained 0.29 percent to finish at 5.375.35 while in Frankfurt the DAX added 0.41 percent to finish at 6,202.82.
The Euro STOXX 50 index of leading eurozone shares added 0.29 percent to reach 3,998.19.
On the currency market the dollar was under pressure against the euro on Friday in response to weak US manufacturing data.
US stocks were lower in midday trading as investors consolidated portfolios following a record-breaking streak that saw the leading Dow Jones index burst the 12,000-point barrier.
Plummeting oil prices and healthy corporate earnings helped propel the leading blue-chip index to new heights, but investors appeared to be taking stock Friday as shares languished.
"Earnings reports remain very good, and the market yawns as OPEC announces plans for a production cut. Those are the major story lines for today," said Dick Green, a senior analyst at Briefing.com.
In London steelmaker Corus fell 1.04 percent to ?4.7350 after having agreed to be acquired at ?4.55 a share by Tata Steel of India.
On the Paris exchange oil giant Total gained 0.94 percent to close at 53.70 euros following an OPEC decision to cut production in a bid to shore up sagging crude prices.
European aerospace group EADS, trying to overcome acute production difficulties at its aircraft unit Airbus, lost 0.14 percent to end the week at 21.12 euros after revealing that it may have to seek financing on equity markets next year.
Elsewhere there were gains of 0.70 percent to a record 13,558 on the IBEX-35 in Madrid, 0.33 percent to 4,173.30 on the BEL 20 in Brussels, 0.08 percent to 39,469 on the SP/MIB in Milan and 0.26 percent to 8,643.02 on the Swiss Market Index.
In Amsterdam the AEX fell 0.22 percent to 489.40.
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],”
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
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