European stocks fell for the first week since June as Greece’s prime minister asked the leaders of Germany and France for a two-year reprieve from cutting government spending and Japan’s trade deficit widened.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index dropped 1.8 percent to 268 this past week, snapping its longest winning streak since 2006. Still, the benchmark measure has advanced 15 percent from this year’s low on June 4 after a summit of euro-area policymakers agreed to ease repayment terms for Spanish banks and European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi pledged to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro.
“The recent equity market weakness is a product of profit-taking and the expectation that growth could be weak, but inflation will be maintained by stimulus moving forward,” said Daniel Weston, a portfolio adviser at Schroeder Equities GmbH in Munich. “Japan’s trade numbers highlighted slowing global growth, and comments from Europe and the US have leaned towards further accommodative policy.”
Greece must implement reforms if it wants further international loans under the terms of its second bailout from the EU, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Speaking at a joint press conference with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Berlin on Friday, she said that the leaders of the 17-nation single currency would wait for a report from the troika due next month before making their decision. Samaras was to meet with French President Francois Hollande in Paris yesterday.
Draghi may wait until Germany’s Constitutional Court rules on the legality of the euro-area’s permanent bailout fund before announcing the details of his planned government bond-purchase program, two central bank officials said on Friday.
Stocks fell after Germany’s Bundesbank said on Monday Aug. 20 that the ECB’s proposal to buy bonds entailed “significant stability risks.”
The new program could be “unlimited” and decisions that involve greater sharing of solvency risks should be taken by governments or parliaments, not by central banks, it said.
Japan had a trade deficit of ¥517.4 billion (US$6.6 billion) last month, the country’s finance ministry reported on Wednesday. That compared with a ¥60.3 billion surplus in June and a ¥270 billion forecast deficit in a Bloomberg News survey of 28 economists.
National benchmark indices fell in all of the 18 Western European markets except Greece this week. The UK’s FTSE 100 slipped 1.3 percent, while Germany’s DAX retreated 1 percent. France’s CAC 40 dropped 1.6 percent.
An index of mining stocks was among the worst-performing industry groups on the STOXX 600 this week. Rio Tinto lost 4.2 percent and ArcelorMittal declined 5.8 percent.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last