European stocks fell for the third week in four as the European Central Bank (ECB) damped speculation it would boost debt purchases, overshadowing an agreement by the region’s leaders to step up measures to fight the debt crisis.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index slipped 0.1 percent to 240.51 this past week. The gauge dropped 1.5 percent on Thursday as ECB President Mario Draghi said the central bank’s bond-purchase program is “neither eternal nor infinite.” The benchmark measure has still rallied 12 percent from this year’s low on Sept. 22 amid optimism policymakers would solve the crisis.
“The ECB signaled clearly, by saying bond buying will be limited, that turning to the ECB is not the solution to the debt crisis,” said Henrik Drusebjerg, a senior strategist at Nordea Bank AB in Copenhagen.
ECB policymakers reduced the eurozone’s benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point on Thursday to 1 percent, matching a record low. They also loosened collateral rules so that banks can borrow more from the ECB and announced two unlimited three-year loans.
Draghi said he didn’t signal that the central bank would step up government bond purchases when speaking before lawmakers in Brussels on Dec. 1. He said he was “kind of surprised by the implicit meaning” that was given to his comments when he said the ECB could follow faster fiscal union with “other elements.”
“Draghi appeared to pour cold water on expectations of more bond purchases,” said David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index in London. “This seemed to push responsibility firmly back on individual governments, a fact that perhaps still doesn’t sit too comfortably with a lot of investors.”
The STOXX 600 pared its weekly decline on Friday as European leaders agreed to boost funds available to assist nations struggling with budget deficits. Policymakers meeting in Brussels added 200 billion euros (US$267 billion) to their crisis-fighting war chest by funneling money from central banks to the IMF. They also tightened rules to curb future debts and watered down demands that bondholders should shoulder losses in bailouts.
In the run-up to the summit, US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner said Italy had a “strong program” of economic changes and European leaders were moving toward a “fiscal union” that would strengthen the eurozone firewall. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti presented a 30 billion euro package to reduce the EU’s second-biggest debt to the Italian parliament, including more than 12 billion euros in spending cuts and plans to force workers to delay retirement.
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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