European stocks were little changed, after six consecutive weeks of gains, as investors pondered prospects for economic growth and monetary policy.
Petrofac Ltd tumbled 17 percent after forecasting “flat to modest” profit growth next year. Sugar producer Suedzucker AG fell 15 percent after saying earnings will not match expectations. Aberdeen Asset Management PLC jumped 11 percent after Lloyds Banking Group agreed to sell its Scottish Widows Investment Partnership division to the money manager.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index lost less than 0.1 percent to 322.77 this week. The 600-share regional benchmark has surged 15 percent this year, reaching its highest level since May 2008, as central banks around the world pledged to continue their support for economic growth even as the US Federal Reserve gets ready to consider tapering its monetary stimulus.
The Euro STOXX 50 Index, a measure for euro-area shares, gained less than 0.1 percent this week.
“Tapering is an inevitable development that could be taken negatively in terms of market sentiment, but, however, it is fundamentally sound,” Ilario Di Bon, head of equities at Alliance Trust in London, said by phone. “It means that the recipe of the Fed starts to have an effect on the real economy. We are mending the system, as opposed to living in artificial support forever.”
Fed officials might reduce their US$85 billion in monthly bond purchases “in coming months” as the economy improves, according to the record of the Federal Open Market Committee’s Oct. 29 and 30 gathering, released on Wednesday.
Economists in a Bloomberg survey expect the central bank to begin reducing bond purchases in March.
The European Central Bank is considering a smaller-than-normal cut in the deposit rate if officials decide to take it negative for the first time, according to two people with knowledge of the debate.
The central bank this month refrained from cutting the deposit rate, even as it reduced its key refinancing rate to a record low 0.25 percent.
National benchmark indices rose in nine of the 18 Western European markets this week. Germany’s DAX gained 0.6 percent. The UK’s FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 40 both slipped 0.3 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