European stocks rose this week as reports showing a decline in US jobless claims and increases in consumer confidence and durable-goods orders spurred optimism that the world’s biggest economy is strengthening.
The STOXX 600 Europe Index advanced 3.5 percent to 241.86 this past week. The gauge has risen 13 percent from this year’s low on Sept. 22 as eurozone leaders attempted to stem the region’s debt woes. The measure has still fallen 12 percent this year as the fiscal crisis spread from Greece to Italy and Spain.
“It’s a relief to see stabilization in the US economy,” said Guillaume Duchesne, an equity strategist at BGL BNP Paribas SA in Luxembourg.
“This stabilization allows us to focus less on the debt crisis in Europe. That’s favorable for the market, but it’s not time to become euphoric,” he added.
Fitch Ratings on Monday lowered France’s credit outlook and put the grades of nations including Spain and Italy on review for a downgrade, citing Europe’s failure to find a “comprehensive solution” to the debt crisis.
National benchmark indices rose in all of Europe’s 18 western markets, except Iceland. France’s CAC 40 Index surged 4.4 percent, the UK’s FTSE 100 Index gained 2.3 percent and Germany’s DAX increased 3.1 percent.
The volume of shares changing hands across Europe declined this week as the Christmas holiday approached. Trading on the STOXX 600 was 31 percent below the average for this year.
In Germany, business confidence increased this month, suggesting Europe’s largest economy is weathering the eurozone’s debt crisis. The sentiment gauge, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, rose to 107.2 from 106.6 last month, the Munich-based Ifo Institute said on Tuesday. The median economist forecast called for a drop to 106.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to