European stocks fell for a second day on Friday, with media shares leading declines, while US-payrolls data fueled bets the US Federal Reserve would raise rates.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index dropped 0.9 percent to 397.07 at the close. Shares extended losses in late trading, cutting their weekly gain to 0.2 percent. Greece’s ASE Index, which reopened on Monday after a five-week suspension, added 1.5 percent, paring its weekly slide to 15 percent. Coca-Cola HBC AG contributed the most to Greek gains on Friday, rising 7 percent.
“Stocks seek growth,” said Daniel Weston, chief investment officer of Aimed Capital in Munich, Germany. “With jobs numbers coming in as expected, and a rate rise likely to come, it is unsure at present what the drivers are to own stocks during this summer period.”
US employers added 215,000 jobs last month, lower than the 225,000 predicted by economists.
Still, the unemployment rate held at a seven-year low of 5.3 percent, a sign of healing in the labor market that is keeping the Fed on the path toward raising interest rates as soon as next month.
Broadcasters including the UK’s ITV PLC, Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE and Italy’s Mediaset SpA fell at least 3.4 percent after concern that advertising would decline as viewers shift to online programming triggered an overnight selloff in the US. Sanofi and Novo Nordisk A/S contributed the most to a drop in drug companies.
Among stocks active on corporate news, Nokian Renkaat Oyj slipped 1.5 percent after the Nordic region’s largest tiremaker downgraded its outlook following disappointing second-quarter profit and sales.
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA jumped 8.8 percent after the lender, which tapped Italy for two bailouts since 2009, swung to a profit in the second quarter.
Anglo American PLC and Glencore PLC rose at least 2 percent, leading a rebound in commodity producers.
BP PLC and Total SA pushed a gauge of energy shares higher, even as oil reversed an earlier gain.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts