European stocks posted their first weekly advance in a month, as China pledged to bolster growth and a three-week selloff left the STOXX Europe 600 Index at its cheapest level since January.
A gauge of lenders rallied the most in two months even as Moody’s Investors Service downgraded some of the region’s banks. Construction companies rebounded on speculation the Chinese government would accelerate its infrastructure projects. Vodafone Group climbed as revenue topped estimates.
The STOXX 600 rose 1.5 percent to 242.49 this week as 18 of 19 industry groups gained. The gauge is still down 11 percent from this year’s high on March 16 amid mounting concern Greece will fail to implement budget measures required to stay in the euro. The selloff has left the gauge’s valuation at 10.1 times estimated earnings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“It is still debatable whether or not one buys into equity markets at these levels because uncertainties are profound, but value is starting to be seen,” said Andrew Milligan, head of global strategy at Standard Life Investments Ltd in Edinburgh. “All we can say is a lot of bad news has been priced in.”
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said this week the nation should put “stabilizing growth in a more important position.” In comments posted on the government’s Web site, he called for an increase in lending to support construction, spurring expectations that the government would step up stimulus measures.
The STOXX 600 still sank 2.1 percent on Wednesday, as former Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos told the Wall Street Journal that while it was unlikely Athens would leave the euro, it was still a risk.
EU leaders met in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the region’s debt crisis. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti told Italian television station La7 that the majority of EU leaders at the meeting backed joint euro-area bonds and that Italy could help persuade Germany to support Europe’s “common good.”
National benchmark indexes rose in all the 18 western European markets this week, except Greece, Spain and Portugal. The UK’s FTSE 100 rose 1.6 percent, France’s CAC 40 gained 1.3 percent and Germany’s DAX rose 1.1 percent.
A gauge of banks rallied 2.2 percent, the biggest advance since March. KBC Groep NV, Belgium’s largest bank and insurer, jumped 10 percent, while Sweden’s Nordea Bank AB gained 5.7 percent and UBS AG increased 4.3 percent.
Moody’s this week downgraded Dexia Bank Belgium, Sweden’s Nordea and Svenska Handelsbanken AB, and Norway’s DNB Bank ASA. It downgraded 16 Spanish banks last week.
A gauge of construction-related firms rose 2.3 percent, paring some of last week’s 6.5 percent selloff. The shares climbed as the China Securities Journal reported the country was planning to speed up the approval of infrastructure projects.
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],”
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
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