European stocks posted a third weekly gain as companies from Royal Philips NV to Akzo Nobel NV reported profits that beat estimates and US jobs data fueled bets that the US Federal Reserve will wait until March to pare stimulus.
Philips and Akzo Nobel rose more than 5 percent, while Celesio AG jumped 13 percent after McKesson Corp agreed to buy the German drug wholesaler for 3.9 billion euros (US$5.4 billion).
Aberdeen Asset Management PLC climbed 11 percent after saying it is in talks to buy Scottish Widows Investment Partnership and form an alliance with Lloyds Banking Group PLC, while ABB Ltd increased 8.5 percent as quarterly profit rose 10 percent.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index advanced 0.5 percent to 320.09 this week, extending its rally so far this year to 14 percent. The gauge climbed to a five-year high of 320.97 on Tuesday as it capped a nine-day winning streak, the longest since June 2010.
National benchmark indices rose in 10 of the 18 western European markets this week. The UK’s FTSE 100 advanced 1.5 percent, while Germany’s DAX gained 1.4 percent to a record high and France’s CAC 40 fell 0.3 percent.
“We have profit growth, not a lot of it but we have it,” Steven Bell, a London-based fund manager at F&C Asset Management, said by telephone. “That constitutes a lukewarm case for equities, but when you consider the alternatives, the attractiveness becomes greater.”
In the US, payrolls climbed less than projected last month, data released on Tuesday more than two weeks later than scheduled showed. Consumer confidence in the world’s largest economy fell to the weakest level so far this year, another report showed.
A Bloomberg survey last week showed that economists expect the Fed to delay paring its bond purchases until March as Washington’s 16-day partial shutdown this month weighs on fourth-quarter growth.
The addition of 148,000 workers by US employers trailed the median projection in a Bloomberg survey for an increase of 180,000, but unemployment fell to 7.2 percent, the lowest level since November 2008.
“There’s still some slack in the US economy and employment continues to rise,” Bell said. “The big picture for the Fed is that the economy needs stimulus so let’s give it.”
In China, a private measure of manufacturing strengthened more than forecast this month. The reading of 50.9 for the purchasing managers’ index from HSBC Holdings PLC and Markit Economics beat the 50.4 median estimate from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Fifty is the threshold for expansion.
The advance reading of a composite index for eurozone manufacturing and services dropped to 51.5 this month from 52.2 last month. The median economist forecast had called for 52.4.
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
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
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