European stocks rose, rebounding from a four-week low, as data showed that in the second quarter, the US economy expanded at the fastest rate since the last three months of 2011.
Total SA advanced 2.3 percent following a report that it may sell a stake in the Gulf of Mexico’s Tahiti oil field, while Air France-KLM Group dropped 1.7 percent after the board said pilot demands do not fit with its plan for a low-cost model. J Sainsbury PLC lost 3.1 percent as data from researcher Nielsen Holdings NV showed 12-week sales at the UK grocer fell 1.8 percent.
A gauge of retail companies fell the most of the 19 industry groups on the STOXX Europe 600 Index. The STOXX 600 climbed 0.3 percent to 342.3 at the close of trading on Friday, after earlier rising and falling as much as 0.5 percent. The equity benchmark fell 1.8 percent this week, as investors assessed the health of the eurozone economy and central bank stimulus policies.
“We are seeing investor confidence in the US economy,” Robert Halver, head of capital markets research at Baader Bank AG in Frankfurt, said in a telephone interview. “America imports goods and services from euro-land and if the economy of America — the main motor of the global economy — is running on all cylinders, it means we can export more.”
US GDP grew at a revised 4.6 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, up from a previous estimate of 4.2 percent, US Department of Commerce data showed on Friday in Washington. The increase matched the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and followed a 2.1 percent decline in the first three months of the year.
In the UK, lawmakers voted to authorize air strikes on Islamic State positions in Iraq, with military action to start soon.
National benchmark indices climbed in 13 of the 18 Western European markets. The UK’s FTSE 100 advanced 0.2 percent, Germany’s DAX Index slid 0.2 percent and France’s CAC Index jumped 0.9 percent.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the