European shares rose on Friday, led by NEX Group PLC as it jumped after a takeover offer, although stocks ended the week mostly flat as worries about a trade war and geopolitical tensions kept investors on edge.
The pan-European STOXX 600 on Friday rose 0.83 points, or 0.2 percent, to close at 377.7, sliding 0.1 percent from 378.24 on March 9.
Germany’s DAX on Friday rose 44.02 points, or 0.4 percent, to 12,389.58 following a delayed open. The index edged up 0.3 percent from a close of 12,346.68 a week earlier.
The first day of trading got off to a bumpy start for Siemens Healthineers, which gained just more than 5 percent.
Worries about a possible trade war have hung over equities since US President Donald Trump earlier this month announced that he would introduce tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, while a shake-up of the president’s Cabinet has also dampened the mood.
“We have become a little bit more tepid on European stocks as the year progresses,” Mediolanum Asset Management Ltd head of investments Gautam Batra said.
“We felt valuations carried weight in favor of Europe, but the sector makeup doesn’t look that great and the news on the trade front isn’t supportive for Europe either,” Batra added.
Dealmaking added some spice to trading, with exchange operator NEX Group soaring about 33 percent to the top of the STOXX following a preliminary takeover offer from US-based peer CME Group Inc.
“There has been an element of companies holding back over the last couple of years until the economic recovery got established,” Interactive Investor head of markets Richard Hunter said.
“In this hyper-low interest rate environment, there are only so many things that companies can do with ... the excess cash they are generating and a lot of them have done share buybacks or increased their dividend and more lately we’re now seeing a spike in M&A [mergers and acquisitions] activity,” Hunter added.
Telecoms group Altice NV jumped 5 percent following its results, with the debt-ridden group saying that it sees signs of a recovery in the competitive French market.
French oil storage and distribution company Rubis SCA was another top gainer, up 3.3 percent at a record high after reporting full-year results and upping its dividend.
However, shares in British housebuilder Berkeley Group Holdings PLC fell 4.6 percent after the company said it could not boost building volumes beyond current plans.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the