Europe's main stock markets closed higher on Friday, with the London exchange shrugging off a bomb scare in the British capital to close in positive territory.
In London the FTSE 100 index gained 0.56 percent to close at 6,607.90 points, in Paris the CAC 40 rose 0.81 percent to finish at 6,054.93 points and in Frankfurt the DAX climbed 1.09 percent to end the day at 8,007.32.
British police on Friday defused a car bomb which could have caused carnage in London's entertainment district, sparking a manhunt and probe into possible international links.
"There was a jitter first thing in the morning based on the [suspect] car found, but it didn't shake the market too much," Blue Index CFDs analyst Ben Timms said.
The London market was supported by data that showed the British economy grew by a faster-than-expected annual rate of 3.0 percent during the first quarter.
The DJ Euro STOXX 50 index of leading eurozone shares gained 0.71 percent to 4,489.77 points.
US stocks were higher in morning trade on Friday as a government report showed some ebbing of inflationary pressures a day after the US Federal Reserve announced that it was keeping short-term interest rates unchanged.
Stocks gained after the US Commerce Department said core inflation, which strips out energy and food prices, over the year to May moderated to a gain of 1.9 percent, a slower pace than April's reading of 2 percent and March's reading of 2.1 percent.
London's main index was partly weighed down on Friday by a large fall to the share price of Drax Group. The power generator lost 2.02 percent to £7.2650 after publishing a trading update that failed to impress, dealers said.
In Paris, the market was supported by Cap Gemini, which extended a strong run that had begun Thursday.
Elsewhere in Europe, in Madrid the IBEX 35 rose 0.49 percent to 14,892 points, in Milan the SP/MIB gained 0.60 percent to 41,954 points, in Amsterdam the AEX added 0.40 percent to 548.21 points, while in Brussels the BEL 20 rose 0.63 percent to 4,639.40 points.
IN GOOD FAITH: Lai said he appreciates Micron’s commitment to Taiwan and that it would continue expanding its investment in the country, while also working with labor President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday called for US memory maker Micron Technology Inc and its workers to negotiate “sincerely” ahead of a possible strike by the company’s union in Taiwan. Last week, a Taiwanese union representing workers at Micron said it had secured authorization from its members to strike over a dispute concerning the company’s bonus scheme, escalating a labor conflict at the chipmaker’s largest manufacturing hub. Micron employs about 15,000 people in Taiwan and has said it invested more than NT$1.6 trillion (US$49.6 billion) in the country. Speaking in Taichung at the opening of a new Micron advanced assembly and testing facility,
China proposed adding advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to its export-control list, potentially restricting overseas transfers of AI models and chip designs in an effort to keep closer control over homegrown advancements in a strategically important sector. The draft proposal covers 23 AI technologies, including large language models, agents, chip designs and computing clusters. Restricted technologies would include model weights and source code for products exceeding certain performance thresholds. Chinese AI startups have this summer made significant progress in closing the gap on US industry leaders. Models such as Moonshot (月之暗面) AI’s Kimi K3 and DeepSeek’s (深度求索) latest editions offer better pricing,
Taiwan should not rule out any energy source or abandon environmental sustainability in favor of ideology and short-term benefits, President William Lai (賴清德) said in an interview, calling for a “professional assessment” of whether nuclear power should be reintroduced into Taiwan’s energy mix. In an online interview with influencer Yu Ting-hao (游庭皓) that aired yesterday, Lai reiterated his position on nuclear power. SHIFT Lai’s remarks marked a shift from the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP’s) longstanding opposition to nuclear power. As premier from 2017 to 2019, Lai pushed for more gas-fired power capacity while sticking to the DPP’s nuclear free homeland ideology and rejected the
CoreWeave Inc has become caught in a tug of war between investors who see rising bond yields as a potential rally killer for the artificial intelligence (AI) trade and those who think demand for computing power will make those concerns seem passe before long. The cloud-computing services provider’s shares plunged 20 percent in the first three sessions of last week, including more than 15 percent on Wednesday, as its debt tumbled to levels that typically indicate distress. On Thursday morning, the cost of protecting CoreWeave bonds against default rose to the highest intraday level on record, while swaps priced in a
RSS