European stocks snapped a five-day winning streak on Friday, trimming their weekly gain, as automakers led the STOXX Europe 600 Index lower.
Volkswagen AG slid 2.4 percent after data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association showed its share of the European market contracted to a five-year low. Daimler AG dropped 2.1 percent.
Energy producers retreated as oil fell for a third day before major suppliers meet in Doha today to discuss an output freeze. Miners declined for a second day, led by Anglo American PLC and Glencore PLC as industrial metals slipped.
The STOXX 600 fell 0.4 percent to 342.79 at the close of trading, paring its weekly advance to 3.3 percent. European stocks, which hit their highest levels ever a year ago, are now struggling for fresh impetus after rebounding as much as 14 percent from a Feb. 11 low.
The equity benchmark has traded in a tight range in the past month amid renewed concern over the prospects for global growth and is down 6.3 percent since the start of the year.
“The week has been pretty good and markets are catching a break today,” said Benno Galliker, a trader at Luzerner Kantonalbank AG in Lucerne, Switzerland. “Earnings are looking OK and I don’t expect a huge rally from here, but step by step, we will climb up the wall of worries and go higher. The biggest concern is if earnings next week come lower than expectations — it could change the market mood.”
Investors are assessing earnings reports for clues on corporate health, with analysts predicting profit at STOXX 600 companies would shrink this year, reversing earlier calls for growth. Gains this week have pushed the index’s valuation to about 15.7 times estimated profit, which is almost 20 percent above the average multiple for the past five years.
Greece’s ASE Index posted the best performance of Western European markets today, with Piraeus Bank SA leading a surge in domestic lenders after the European Central Bank said some of their bonds are eligible to be bought under its quantitative-easing program.
Among other stocks moving on corporate news, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV supported food-and-beverage companies, rising 1.8 percent after agreeing to create a fund that will support the South African beer industry and protect jobs in the country to help seal approval for its proposed takeover of SABMiller PLC, which added 1.6 percent.
Carrefour SA advanced 3.8 percent after France’s largest retailer reported higher first-quarter revenue, as growth in southern Europe and Latin America compensated for a drop in China.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by