European stocks rose for the third week in four as Germany and France said that Greece would remain a euro member and the European Central Bank (ECB) announced measures with the Federal Reserve to ensure that banks have enough US dollars.
British banks rallied, leading a gauge of European lenders higher ,as central banks said they would offer three-month loans to provide liquidity.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index gained 2.5 percent to 230.16 this week, paring the previous week’s 3.7 decline, as 16 of the 19 industry groups in the benchmark measure climbed.
The gauge has still plunged 21 percent from this year’s peak on Feb. 17, as economic reports from the US and Europe trailed forecasts and Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US’ sovereign-debt rating, citing politicians’ failure to reduce record deficits.
“This week, we’ve had nothing but good news and positive comments from the political leaders in Europe, from Merkel starting the week saying she will not allow a ‘disorderly default’ in Greece, to the central banks’ intervention yesterday, reducing the risk of a liquidity crisis,” said Henrik Drusebjerg, a senior strategist at Nordea Bank AB in Copenhagen, on Friday. “Markets are still very volatile and things could look very different soon.”
The STOXX 600 traded at 9.7 times the estimated earnings of its constituent companies, near the lowest valuation since March 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday that they are “convinced” Greece would stay in the euro area, after a phone conversation with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou.
European stocks extended their rebound on Thursday as the ECB said that it would conduct three US dollar liquidity-providing operations with a maturity of approximately three months.
The ECB will coordinate the auctions with the Fed, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank. The ECB would conduct them as fixed-rate tenders with full allotment.
National benchmark indexes rose in every western-European market except Greece and Iceland. France’s CAC 40 Index added 1.9 percent, the UK’s FTSE 100 Index gained 2.9 percent and Germany’s DAX Index rallied 7.4 percent.
Lloyds Banking PLC surged 15 percent, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC jumped 13 percent and Barclays PLC soared 13 percent. A measure of UK banks rallied 6.2 percent, its biggest weekly gain in more than two months.
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