European stocks had their biggest weekly gain since November, led by insurers and banks, after JPMorgan Chase & Co's increased bid for Bear Stearns Cos eased concern that financial firms would collapse and Swiss Life Holding reported better-than-estimated profit.
Allianz SE, Europe's biggest insurer, and UBS AG, the region's largest bank by assets, paced the rally. HBOS Plc, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, rose the most in more than six years after the company's executives bought shares in the bank. BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto Group led mining stocks higher.
The Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index added 3.3 percent to 306.69 in the four-day week, shortened by the Easter holiday. That was the first advance in five weeks.
The measure is down 16 percent this year, the worst first quarter since at least 1987, on concern more than US$208 billion in credit losses and mortgage debt will hurt profit growth and economic expansion.
"It's been one of the more turbulent quarters in history," said Michael O'Sullivan, head of UK research at Credit Suisse Group in London.
"The market has this week brushed aside weak macro numbers, particularly out of the US, which suggests that this short-term rally we're seeing has some length to go," O'Sullivan said.
National benchmarks climbed in all of the 18 western European markets. Germany's DAX Index rose 3.8 percent. France's CAC 40 added 3.6 percent, as did the UK's FTSE 100.
The STOXX 50 increased 3 percent and the Euro STOXX 50, a measure for the euro region, jumped 3.9 percent. Most exchanges were closed on Monday for Easter.
Shares in the STOXX 600 are valued at an average 11.7 times estimated earnings, near the lowest since at least January 2002, weekly Bloomberg data show.
INFRINGEMENT: The investigation comes after a complaint from Vicor Corp, with the company seeking a limited exclusion order as well as cease-and-desist orders, the ITA said The US International Trade Commission (USITC) has launched a Section 337 investigation naming Taiwanese technology companies, including Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), as respondents. The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) pledged assistance if needed. The USITC said on Friday in a statement that it had voted to institute an investigation under Section 337 of the US Tariff Act of 1930 into certain vertical power delivery systems, related components and computing devices incorporating such systems. The investigation covers 20 companies from Taiwan, China, Germany and the US, the commission said, adding that it
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,
A man charged along with Super Micro Computer Inc co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw (廖益賢) of conspiring to send cutting-edge chips to China in violation of US export controls pleaded guilty, court documents said. Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun (孫廷瑋), a former outside contractor described by US authorities as a “fixer” who allegedly aided in the sales, pleaded guilty on Thursday at a hearing in federal court in New York as part of an agreement with prosecutors, court filings showed. Prosecutors claimed the men were part of a scheme to send Nvidia Corp-powered servers to an unnamed Southeast Asian company and then divert them to
Microsoft Corp chief executive officer Satya Nadella said companies should treat powerful artificial intelligence (AI) models as potential insider threats, assume they could be compromised and create an “emergency brake” system to prevent agentic models from going rogue. Nadella said that those deploying advanced AI should not rely on assurances from model makers. “We must assume a model is compromised and contain it from the start,” Nadella wrote on Saturday in a post on X. “Think of it like an emergency brake. An authorized person should always be able to pause or shut down a model mid-task.” The statement comes as Anthropic PBC
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