European shares ended higher on Friday as investors welcomed slightly stronger-than-expected US jobs data, strength in the telecom sector and gains from French automaker Renault.
The UK FTSE 100 index closed up 0.8 percent at 6,676.70 and the German DAX Xetra 30 index rose 1.3 percent to 7,987.85, also helped by gains of 2.3 percent from software company SAP.
The French CAC-40 index increased 1.1 percent to 6,168.15, with shares in Renault up 7.1 percent. The company just held a road show with Japan's Nissan Motors, in which Renault holds a 44 percent stake.
"The road show highlights bullish margin guidance and the importance of successful execution in the US," noted analysts at Deutsche Bank.
US stocks opened higher, bolstered by an enthusiastic response to data that showed inflation fell back to the Fed's comfort zone as more jobs were created last month than projected.
Utility shares performed well for the second day, with EDF shares up 3.6 percent in France. Germany's E.On rose 1.5 percent, adding to gains a day earlier when it detailed well-received capital return plans. Spain's Iberdrola added another 5 percent, extending gains after Belgian financier Albert Frere disclosed he bought a 5 percent stake.
Major telecom companies gained ground, with Vodafone Group shares up 3.1 percent, Deutsche Telekom shares 4.1 percent higher and France Telecom up 2.6 percent as bid speculation hit the sector once more.
"The rumor is that AT&T and Telefonica are looking to have a pop at Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit after they failed to buy Telecom Italia," David Buik at Cantor Index said.
However, he also cautioned against taking this speculation too seriously.
"It's Friday, it's been a tough week, the market's bored," he said.
In the technology sector, German semiconductor maker Infineon Technologies rose 2.2 percent, extending gains made on Thursday when Goldman Sachs added the company to its conviction buy list.
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day