European stocks rose for the third straight week as banks rallied after Portugal requested a bailout and the European Central Bank (ECB) increased interest rates for the first time in almost three years.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index advanced 0.6 percent to 281.68 this past week. The gauge has rallied 7.4 percent from this year’s low on March 16 as investors speculated that the economic recovery will withstand Japan’s worst earthquake on record and popular revolts in the Middle East and north Africa. On Thursday, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said that officials had not decided on a series of increases to interest rates. Earlier that day, the bank lifted the benchmark to 1.25 percent from a record low of 1 percent, where it had been since May 2009.
“Ultra-loose policy settings have clearly led to short-term economic momentum and to expectations that this trend can continue, perhaps for some time,” said Iain Stewart, a fund manager at Newton Investment Management Ltd in London, which oversees the equivalent of US$76.8 billion.
The STOXX 600 traded at about 13.8 percent times its companies’ reported earnings, near the cheapest since 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Fifty-four percent of companies in the gauge that have announced earnings since Jan. 10 topped the average analyst estimate for per-share profit.
ECB policy makers will follow the increase with 25 basis-point steps every three months, according to the median of 20 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last