European stocks erased declines after Deutsche Bank AG swung to gains amid easing investor concern about its financial health.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index edged up 0.06 percent on Friday, reversing an earlier slide of 1.7 percent. It was down 0.7 percent from a week earlier.
Deutsche Bank erased a drop of as much 9 percent to rise 5.8 percent after a report it is nearing a US$5.4 billion settlement with the US Department of Justice, lower than feared. The lender, which tumbled on Monday amid concerns about its capital buffers, fell anew earlier on Friday after a report that hedge funds moved to cut their exposure to it.
“There may be speculation about the fine,” said Michael Woischneck, who manages about US$180 million as senior equities manager at Lampe Asset Management in Dusseldorf, Germany. “It’s the last trading day of the third quarter and for a lot of mutual funds it’s even the end of their fiscal year — Deutsche Bank is in a lot of those, and they don’t want the stock trading in single digits, so they may be buying. All of the problems that were there this morning are still there and will still be there next week.”
Lenders in the STOXX 600 erased a plunge of as much as 3.8 percent after the Agence France-Presse report on Deutsche Bank that cited an unnamed person familiar with the matter.
Italian and Spanish lenders, including Banco Popolare SC and Bankia SA, reversed earlier declines to rise at least 2.9 percent. Commerzbank AG fell 1.5 percent toward an almost eight-week low.
It has been a rough week for European lenders, with worries about Deutsche Bank followed by job cuts at Commerzbank, a US$1.1 billion lawsuit settlement for Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and prospects of cost reductions at Credit Suisse Group AG.
The Swiss lender has fallen 3.7 percent this week, while Commerzbank is down 9 percent, heading for its worst performance among peers. A gauge of euro-area swings has advanced 17 percent in the period, the most in more than a month.
A rebound in the STOXX 600 banks gauge from a four-year low in July ran out of steam last month, dragging it to the first monthly drop since June. That soured its biggest quarterly advance since March last year. The broader equity benchmark has risen 4 percent in the past three months, its first quarterly gain 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
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