European shares rose on Friday, recovering from their worst day in six weeks with support from robust jobs data from the US, and strong results from Adidas AG and HSBC Holdings PLC.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed up 0.4 percent, rising up to 0.6 percent after strong US jobs data, before trading back at mid-day levels.
On the week, the index fell 0.2 percent after two weeks of gains.
Data on Friday showed that US job growth surged last month and the unemployment rate dropped to a more than 49-year low of 3.6 percent, pointing to sustained strength in economic activity.
“The April [jobs] report allows the US Federal Reserve to remain comfortably on hold for the next few meetings as it awaits more data, particularly on global risks and the inflation outlook,” analysts at TD Securities said in a note.
Investors tend to dump stocks in a rising interest-rate environment due to higher cost of capital and better appeal for bonds.
Shares around the globe had fallen on Thursday after the Fed signaled little appetite to adjust interest rates anytime soon, dampening hopes of a rate cut among market participants.
Gains of nearly 2 percent by London-listed shares of HSBC after the lender beat quarterly profit estimates was the biggest boost to the pan-region index.
French lender Societe Generale SA also rose as its capital buffer was stronger than expected, helping investors shrug off a decline in quarterly net profit.
The personal and household goods sector rose 1.2 percent.
Adidas jumped almost 10 percent to hit a record high after the sportswear maker’s quarterly net profit rose.
“Not many European stocks are racking up all-time highs, and that underlines the bullish sentiment,” CMC Markets PLC analyst David Madden said in London.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV jumped 4.6 percent after the automaker said that new US pickup truck models would help it achieve its profit targets this year and offset a weak first quarter.
Meanwhile, Air France-KLM Group tumbled 5.5 percent as the Franco-Dutch group blamed higher fuel costs and tough price competition for its first-quarter loss.
Reinsurer Swiss Re AG slid 3 percent to be one of the biggest drags on STOXX 600 on an unexpected fall in quarterly net profit.
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],”
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
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