European stocks fell for a fourth day on Friday, led by Greece, after the Mediterranean nation became the first country to postpone a payment to the IMF since the 1980s.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index slid 0.9 percent to 389 at the close of trading, extending its lowest level in almost a month.
Greece’s ASE Index slipped 5 percent, the worst performance among Western European markets, with National Bank of Greece SA, Eurobank Ergasias SA and Piraeus Bank SA down more than 10 percent.
The STOXX 600 pared losses of as much as 1.4 percent after data showed US payrolls last month increased more than forecast and pay accelerated.
“With Greece missing today’s payment, we’re going to get at least one more month of uncertainty,” Michael Kapler, who manages equities at Mittelbrandenburgische Sparkasse, said by phone from Potsdam, Germany.
“It’s a time where people want to unwind risk trades, take profits and sentiment is being hit. Maybe we’re almost reaching a good entry point, but markets need to find some sort of support,” Kapler said.
The STOXX 600 fell 2.7 percent this week, posting its first back-to-back weekly losses since January, as talks failed to end the Greek debt stalemate. It has slipped 6.1 percent since a record in April.
A gauge tracking ASE lenders posted its biggest drop since March 26 after Greece told the IMF it would delay a debt payment of about US$339 million due Friday. Athens submitted a request to the fund to bundle payments totaling about US$1.7 billion due this month into one lump-sum payment.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has rejected proposals by creditors to help unlock more aid to help with repayments.
While international officials have reported some progress in working out a deal on the nation’s debt in recent days, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “We’re still far from reaching a conclusion.”
Germany’s DAX lost 1.3 percent, extending a decline since its April high to 9.5 percent. The CAC 40 Index slid 1.3 percent in France and Italian stocks fell 2.1 percent.
Switzerland’s SMI retreated 1.4 percent, led by a drop in Syngenta AG after Reuters reported a deal with Monsanto may not happen because of antitrust issues.
Vodafone Group retreated 2.4 percent after saying it was in talks with Liberty Global PLC regarding a “possible exchange of selected assets,” rather than a full merger.
Deutsche Bank AG declined 1.7 percent after it was said to be conducting an internal probe into possible money laundering by Russian clients that may involve about US$6 billion of transactions.
IG Group Holdings PLC fell 2.5 percent as Reuters reported that a group of clients said the brokerage and betting firm breached UK trading rules during the Swiss franc surge earlier this year.
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