European stock exchanges advanced on Friday, powered by news that US consumer confidence last month, according to one survey, had shot up to its highest reading since January 2004.
The London FTSE 100 index gained 0.43 percent to close at 6,237.20, while in Paris the CAC 40 rose 1.07 percent to finish at 5,614.70. In Frankfurt the DAX added 0.86 percent to reach 6,747.17.
The Euro STOXX 50 index of leading eurozone shares rose 0.86 percent to 4,173.07.
On the currency market the dollar faltered against the euro here Friday, failing to sustain a rally following publication of the consumer confidence survey.
The single European currency in late-day trade was at US$1.2971 after US$1.2962 late on Thursday in New York.
The US currency initially firmed against the euro on news that the University of Michigan US consumer confidence indicator jumped to 98 points this month from 91.7 in December, its best reading in three years.
US stocks were mixed in late morning trading following a flurry of quarterly earnings reports as Citigroup reported slowing profits and General Electric announced improved earnings.
Telecom firm Motorola announced a moderation in profits and said it would be laying off 3,500 employees this year amid a fierce price war with rival Nokia.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.09 percent at 12,556.00 at 5:05pm GMT. The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite was up 0.16 percent at 2,447.10.
"The market continues to react more to bearish news than to bullish news. Companies that disappoint in any way with their earnings report are getting hammered," said Dick Green, an analyst at Briefing.com.
In London, hotel chain Intercontinental was among the day's big winners, jumping 3.59 percent on persistent takeover rumors.
Steelmaker Corus gained 1.4 percent on Indian press comment suggesting that Tata Steel could beef up its offer for Corus in its bidding battle with CSN of Brazil.
In Paris shares in utility group Suez fell 0.89 percent after French business heavyweight said that while he had secured sufficient financial backing to make a bid for Suez he would refrain from doing so because of an unstable market environment.
In Frankfurt SAP, the world's leading maker of business software, fell 0.60 percent, dragged down by a report from IBM showing that its annual financial results were below expectations.
Elsewhere there were gains of 0.35 percent to a record 9,155.12 on the Swiss Market Index, 0.12 percent to 4,472.73 on the BEL 20 in Brussels, 0.99 percent to 42,123 on the SP/MIB in Milan, 0.93 percent to 14,397.9 on the IBEX-35 in Madrid and 0.31 percent to 507.12 on the AEX in Amsterdam.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS