The Spanish stock market on Friday tumbled after a victory for Catalan separatists in a snap poll, while London hit an intraday record before retreating.
Madrid’s benchmark IBEX 35 index of top companies ended the session about 1.2 percent lower after the Catalan vote injected new uncertainty into one of Europe’s biggest economies.
With turnout at a record high of 82 percent, Thursday’s election handed a mandate back to the region’s ousted separatist leaders after they campaigned from exile and behind bars.
“Investors in Spain lost their Christmas cheer,” IG Group PLC analyst Jasper Lawler said. “It’s a frustrating result for shareholders invested in Spain to capture the country’s rising economic fortunes. Political disruption looks like it will be an ongoing feature of investing in Spain.”
Frankfurt stocks on Friday declined 0.3 percent and Paris dipped 0.4 percent.
The Catalan result is “likely to keep tensions between Madrid and Barcelona elevated, but, at least for now, not likely seen as leading to an imminent breakup of the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy,” Commonwealth Foreign Exchange analyst Omer Esiner said.
The pan-European STOXX 600 on Friday closed down 0.1 percent at 390.28, an increase of 0.5 percent from a close of 388.19 a week earlier.
London’s FTSE 100 zoomed its way to another intraday record high at 7,614.40 points in low-volume trading, boosted by overnight Wall Street gains and the softer pound.
However, the FTSE on Friday closed at 12:30pm for an early finish at 7,592.66 points, down almost 0.2 percent from Thursday. That was an increase of 1.4 percent from a close of 7,490.57 on Dec. 15.
Trade was choppy, with many investors away for extended Christmas and New Year festivities.
“I think the softer pound has played an important role over the last month or so, as has the tax reform-fueled Santa rally in the US, with a number of FTSE 100 firms having exposure to the economy,” Oanda Corp analyst Craig Erlam told reporters.
The Frankfurt, Madrid and Paris stock markets traded as normal on Friday, but London faced a half-day session.
All four European bourses are to be closed tomorrow and on Tuesday for Christmas and Boxing Day, but reopen on Wednesday.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
FORESEEABLE CONSEQUENCES: New technology always comes with new innovations by the iniquitous in exploiting users for financial gain or more nefarious ends Artificial intelligence (AI) “agents” say they can save users time and energy by automating tasks, but the growing power of systems such as OpenClaw is putting cybersecurity experts on edge. Powered by a wave of hype, OpenClaw today says it has more than three million users worldwide. The system allows users to create so-called agents, tools based on a large language model (LLM) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic PBC’s Claude, that can carry out online tasks. “We’ve moved from an AI you could talk with via a chatbot to an agentic AI, which can take action... the threat and the risks are
RSS