European shares were little changed on the final day of trading in a month that has seen their strongest rally in six years.
IAG SA slipped 2.5 percent after its full-year forecast trailed analyst predictions. L’Oreal SA fell 4.6 percent on worse-than-projected sales, dragging a gauge of personal and household goods to the biggest drop among industry groups.
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA lost 3.5 percent after posting a loss. BNP Paribas SA and Airbus Group SE added at least 1.8 percent after their profits topped estimates.
“We’re part way through earnings season and I think it’s been mixed,” said Ben Kumar who helps oversee about US$14 billion as an investment manager at Seven Investment Management in London.
“It’s not been a particularly fun ride, but if you’re overweight Europe since the start of the year, you’ve had a pretty decent year,” Kumar said.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index dropped less than 0.1 percent at the close of trading. After rising as much as 0.3 percent and falling as much as 0.7 percent, the gauge pared losses in the latter half of the session and almost erased a drop in the final settlement.
Europe’s benchmark measure gained 8 percent last month after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the bank would consider additional easing in December.
Its rebound from a quarterly rout has been led by gains in carmakers, miners and energy producers — the groups most battered in the selloff.
The Bank of Japan on Friday refrained from boosting its monetary stimulus, while bank Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he did not see any limits to further action.
Among other stocks active on corporate news, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC slipped 1 percent after reporting profit that missed estimates.
Renault SA rose 5.3 percent after its revenue rose more than projected. Nokian Renkaat Oyj advanced 16 percent after its quarterly income beat estimates.
Euro-region consumer prices stagnated last month after falling 0.1 percent the previous month, a report showed on Friday.
Unemployment decreased in September, a separate release showed.
While eurozone stocks have rallied this month, their performance in the longer run calls into question the Draghi effect.
In the past two years, an index that tracks the eurozone’s equities has risen as much as a European gauge that also includes UK and Swiss shares. US and Japanese equities have advanced more.
Investors are skeptical whether the stimulus is boosting profits, and disappointing results from Deutsche Bank AG and Novartis AG have dragged the STOXX 600 to its first weekly drop in four, down 0.5 percent.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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