European stocks rose the most in six months this week, as investors speculated that Japan will prevent further radiation leaks from its stricken nuclear plant and the US economy grew at a faster-than-forecast pace.
The benchmark STOXX Europe 600 Index gained 3.1 percent this past week for the biggest advance since September last year. The gauge had declined for four consecutive weeks amid concern that revolts in the Middle East and North Africa will further disrupt oil supplies and after Japan suffered its strongest earthquake on record. The gauge has recouped 5.3 percent since this year’s low on March 16.
“The impact on financial markets of the natural catastrophe in Japan was not as dramatic as people feared and valuations are currently too attractive for investors to ignore,” said Kai Fachinger, who manages a fund worth 600 million euros (US$849 million) for SAM Sustainable Asset Management AG in Zurich. “Still, Portugal’s debt problem is an issue that will return to haunt markets.”
The STOXX 600 Index is -trading at about 13.5 times its companies’ reported earnings, near the gauge’s cheapest multiple since 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Stocks extended their gains as Portugal’s Prime Minister Jose Socrates offered to resign after parliament rejected his package of cuts to government spending. Investors speculated that Socrates’ defeat would force the country to ask the EU for a bailout. Two European officials with direct knowledge of the matter said Portugal may need as much as 70 billion euros.
In Germany, business confidence fell less than economists had predicted from a record high. The Munich-based Ifo institute said its business-climate index, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, declined to 111.1 from 111.3 last month, which was the highest reading since records for a reunified Germany began in 1991. Economists had predicted a drop to 110.5, according to the median of 39 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey.
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