European stocks fell for a second week as concern lingered that the region’s debt crisis is deepening and the US Federal Reserve refrained from taking new action to bolster the world’s largest economy.
BNP Paribas SA and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG led banks and carmakers lower, falling more than 7 percent as investors shunned companies with profits most tied to economic growth. Logica PLC plunged 23 percent after the Anglo-Dutch computer-services provider reduced its sales-growth forecast.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index slid 2.8 percent to 233.71 this past week. The benchmark gauge has slumped 15 percent this year as the eurozone’s sovereign-debt crisis spread to Italy and Spain and economic growth in the US slowed.
“There is a risk that we will get a pretty serious recession in Europe,” Edinburgh-based Kames Capital PLC strategy chief Bill Dinning said. Kames Capital manages £47 billion (US$73 billion).
Moody’s Investors Service said it will review the ratings of all EU countries in the first quarter because an EU summit on Dec. 8 and Dec. 9 failed to deliver “decisive policy measures” to end the debt crisis.
Investors cut holdings in European stocks, with 35 percent saying they were “underweight” in the region this month, compared with 30 percent last month.
National benchmark indexes fell in all of the 18 western European markets.
France’s CAC 40 lost 6.3 percent, Germany’s DAX slid 4.8 percent and the UK’s FTSE 100 sank 2.6 percent.
BNP Paribas, France’s biggest bank, retreated 15 percent. Societe Generale SA also declined 15 percent and HSBC Holdings PLC, the region’s largest lender, dropped 4.8 percent.
A gauge of banks in the STOXX 600 fell 6.1 percent, extending its slump for the year to 35 percent.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the