European stocks rose for a second week, posting the longest monthly winning streak since 2006, after eurozone finance ministers eased the terms of loans to Greece and amid optimism that US lawmakers would reach a budget agreement to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
The benchmark STOXX 600 climbed 0.9 percent to 275.78 this week, for a monthly gain of 2 percent. The gauge has risen 18 percent from this year’s low on June 4, as the European Central Bank announced an unlimited bond-buying plan and the US Federal Reserve started a third round of asset purchases.
“The market was very focused on the political developments in Washington this week,” said Konstantin Giantiroglou, head of investment advisory at Neue Aargauer Bank in Brugg, Switzerland. “The fiscal-cliff issue will lose some importance going forward. Market participants have to some extent adjusted their expectations concerning the outcome of this political wrangle. An accord will be found at the last minute.”
US President Barack Obama and Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner this week fueled optimism an agreement could be reached to avert more than US$600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to begin on Jan. 1.
“In the end, they will work something out, but it could be choppy in the shorter term,” Richard Buckland, Citigroup Inc’s London-based chief global equity strategist, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
Consumer confidence in the world’s largest economy rose last month to the highest level in more than four years. The Conference Board’s confidence index climbed to 73.7, the highest since February 2008, from a revised 73.1 reading the previous month, a report showed on Tuesday. That exceeded the median forecast of economists that projected a reading of 73.
In Europe, finance ministers eased the conditions on aid for Greece. In the latest bid to keep the 17-nation euro-area intact, they cut the rates on bailout loans, suspended interest payments for a decade on money from the temporary rescue fund, gave the country more time to repay and outlined a Greek bond buyback. They cleared Greece to get a 34.4 billion euro (US$44.7 billion) loan installment this month.
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