European stocks on Friday snapped a three-day winning streak amid global trade jitters after Beijing ratcheted up its war of words with Washington, while the end of Brexit talks between British political parties put a lid on risk sentiment.
The Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily used a front-page commentary to say that the trade spat with the US would never bring China down, while talks on Brexit between the UK’s opposition Labour Party and the governing Conservatives ended without agreement.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.4 percent, sliding from Thursday’s 10-day closing peak.
However, the benchmark posted a 1.2 percent weekly gain, its best performance since early last month.
Ben Lofthouse, head of global equity income at Janus Henderson, said investors “have moved from being slightly risk-on to risk off.”
“Markets don’t deal well with circumstances that are not well-rehearsed. For global equities, trade is on people’s mind more than Brexit,” Lofthouse said.
Germany’s exporter-heavy DAX declined 0.6 percent, with BMW AG shedding 5.2 percent as its shares traded ex-dividend.
Milan-traded shares fell 0.2 percent, while peers in Paris and London edged 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent lower respectively.
BREXIT KNOCKS POUND
The process of the UK’s complex divorce from the EU was jolted by the opposition Labour Party pronouncing the death of last-ditch talks, due to deepening fractures in British Prime Minister Theresa May’s government.
The news knocked sterling, but supported the shares of exporters on the FTSE 100, as a softer pound broadly boosts the value of their overseas earnings.
Real-estate stocks shed 1.2 percent, with Hammerson PLC down 2.2 percent following a price target cut on the stock by Royal Bank of Canada.
Banks dropped 1.1 percent, with the stocks of most lenders on the sector index ending lower. Italy’s Banco BPM SpA fell 3.2 percent.
Stocks of automakers and their suppliers ended a fourth straight week lower as they dropped 1.1 percent on the day. The sector is especially sensitive to worsening US-China trade tensions.
Paris-listed Valeo SA fell 1.7 percent, while Faurecia Group dropped 1.3 percent.
DELIVERY FIRMS FALL
Food delivery companies tumbled after the UK’s Deliveroo, which is unlisted, secured funding from Amazon.com Inc.
Just Eat PLC sank 8.2 percent, while Amsterdam-listed Takeaway.com NV and Frankfurt-listed Delivery Hero SE shed 4.6 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.
In a bright spot, EasyJet PLC rose 5.3 percent after the budget carrier said that it would meet this year’s expectations, despite a weaker trading environment.
The stock boosted the travel and leisure index, which gained 0.8 percent.
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