European stocks trimmed their weekly gain amid increasing concern that Greece’s efforts to renegotiate its debt and stay in the single currency would fail.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index slipped 0.9 percent to 389.38 at the close of trading, paring its weekly gain to 0.1 percent.
Greece’s ASE Index lost 5.9 percent, for the biggest decline among western European markets, with National Bank of Greece SA and Eurobank Ergasias SA falling more than 10 percent.
Portugal’s PSI 20 Index posted the second-worst performance, with a 1.5 percent drop.
Pressure is mounting on Greece to come up with a solution after the IMF withdrew from talks in Brussels on Thursday, citing “major differences.”
Greece ruled out cutting pensions and demanded debt restructuring. Euro-area officials called for a proposal to stabilize the country’s debt by the end of Friday, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to accept a framework for aid.
Her advisers are already discussing how to deal with a Greek default, Bild newspaper reported.
“I’m beginning to get concerned,” said Henrik Drusebjerg, who helps manage about US$17 billion as chief strategist at Carnegie Investment Bank AB in Copenhagen.
“You’re caught in a dilemma. You can’t seek the bond market for protection. You’re scared for the stock market because of Greece and the Fed, which is closing in on the first rate hike. A lot of investors are very frustrated as to where to place their money,” Drusebjerg said.
Among stocks moving on corporate news on Friday, Zodiac Aerospace plunged 5.4 percent after saying it might not meet this year’s target for operating income.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
CHINA RIVAL: The chips are positioned to compete with Nvidia’s Hopper and Blackwell products and would enable clusters connecting more than 100,000 chips Moore Threads Technology Co (摩爾線程) introduced a new generation of chips aimed at reducing artificial intelligence (AI) developers’ dependence on Nvidia Corp’s hardware, just weeks after pulling off one of the most successful Chinese initial public offerings (IPOs) in years. “These products will significantly enhance world-class computing speed and capabilities that all developers aspire to,” Moore Threads CEO Zhang Jianzhong (張建中), a former Nvidia executive, said on Saturday at a company event in Beijing. “We hope they can meet the needs of more developers in China so that you no longer need to wait for advanced foreign products.” Chinese chipmakers are in
AI TALENT: No financial details were released about the deal, in which top Groq executives, including its CEO, would join Nvidia to help advance the technology Nvidia Corp has agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products. The world’s largest publicly traded company has paid for the right to use Groq’s technology and is to integrate its chip design into future products. Some of the start-up’s executives are leaving to join Nvidia to help with that effort, the companies said. Groq would continue as an independent company with a new chief executive, it said on Wednesday in a post on its Web
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