European stocks posted the biggest weekly advance in more than a month amid speculation that central banks will continue to provide monetary stimulus and as a report showed that Chinese imports had beat forecasts.
A gauge of lenders climbed, with National Bank of Greece SA rallying 24 percent and Barclays PLC advancing 6.9 percent. Man Group PLC, the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund manager, surged the most in four years as regulators cut the amount of capital it must hold. Volkswagen AG and Pirelli & C. SpA slid more than 4 percent as auto industry shares declined.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index rose 1.8 percent to 292.39 this week, even after dropping 0.9 percent on Friday as US retail sales and consumer confidence figures missed forecasts.
The gauge had previously fallen for three straight weeks, the longest stretch of losses in more than 10 months. The benchmark measure has gained 4.5 percent this year as US lawmakers agreed on a compromise budget, and data on housing and jobs fueled optimism that the world’s biggest economy is recovering.
A gauge of carmakers was the only group among 19 in the STOXX 600 that posted a decline this week. Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest car maker, dropped 4.3 percent.
“The week was pretty mixed data-wise, but China saved the world,” said Christian Zogg, head of equity and fixed income at LLB Asset Management AG. “The poor figures out of Europe and the US at the end of last week suggested that the central banks can run a loose monetary policy for a much longer time. Financial shares got a pretty strong boost from that. Sentiment isn’t exactly euphoric, but stocks offer the best yield on the capital market.”
National benchmark indices rose in all of the 18 western European markets this week, except Iceland. The UK’s FTSE 100 added 2.2 percent, while France’s CAC 40 increased 1.8 percent and Germany’s DAX gained 1.1 percent. Greece’s ASE Index surged 13 percent for the biggest jump in nine months and Portugal’s PSI-20 jumped 5.1 percent, the most since September last year.
The European Central Bank (ECB) will look for signs in economic data that inflation may slow more than it anticipates and policy will remain loose for “as long as needed,” according to its monthly bulletin released on Thursday.
In Germany, exports fell more than economists estimated in February as the eurozone, the country’s biggest trading partner, struggled to rebound.
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