European stocks on Friday ran into profit-taking as many investors, wary of global uncertainty and US President Donald Trump’s volatile Twitter diplomacy, cashed out before the weekend, traders said.
Bourses in Paris and Frankfurt had posted solid gains earlier in the session after Trump put off a decision about military strikes in Syria, giving investor nerves a welcome break.
Although tensions appeared to be easing, few dared to carry positions into the weekend, fearing they might regret it come tomorrow morning. Equity markets in Europe finished with modest gains.
The pan-European STOXX 600 on Friday rose 0.38 points, or 0.1 percent, to 379.20, an increase of 1.2 percent from 374.82 on April 6.
“Traders remain cautious heading into the weekend,” Oanda Corp senior market analyst Craig Erlam said. “Given the backdrop of a trade conflict with China and rising tensions with Russia over Syria, any rallies may be somewhat gradual.”
Despite the lackluster ending to the week, European markets “have pulled off a third straight week of gains,” LCG’s Jasper Lawler said, crediting “Trump Twitter fatigue” for the overall resilience of equity markets.
A plunge in software firm Sage Group PLC’s shares put pressure on Britain’s top share index, while a rising pound weighed on big overseas earners.
The FTSE 100 closed up 6.22 points, or 0.1 percent, at 7,264.56, posting a weekly gain of 1 percent for the third time in a row, its best winning streak since early January, as the focus turns to the upcoming first-quarter earnings season.
Shares in Sage were down 8.1 percent, recouping some earlier losses, after the company cut its full-year revenue growth forecast after software subscription growth slowed in the first half.
“It’s not great to hear as you move into earnings season, and tech is a key sector. It’s one that created an element of volatility recently and it is the future,” Accendo Markets head of research at Mike van Dulken said.
“Perhaps [there is] an element of [Sage] being penalized because it’s one of the first few to come out with results, secondly because it’s the tech sector and everyone’s hungry to know that tech is doing OK,” Van Dulken added, pointing to a big fall in peer Micro Focus International PLC last month after a profit warning.
Micro Focus was one of the biggest FTSE gainers on Friday, up 3.2 percent, extending Thursday’s gains following a report that hedge fund Elliott Management Corp had taken a stake in the British software firm.
A stronger pound was another drag on the FTSE, hitting shares in companies that earn a big chunk of their earnings overseas, such as British American Tobacco PLC.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained