French automaker Renault SA dragged European shares lower on Friday, while the sharpest contraction in the Chinese economy in nearly three decades exacerbated worries about slowing global growth.
Renault slumped 12.7 percent to lowest since 2013 after the company cut its full-year revenue and profit forecast amid a broad-based slump in auto sales.
That led to the wider auto and auto parts index posting its biggest percentage drop in two-and-a-half weeks, while the French CAC 40 fell 0.7 percent, lagging its European peers.
Adding to the gloom in the auto sector, Sweden’s Volvo AB said demand for trucks would fall on both sides of the North Atlantic next year.
The pan-European STOXX 600 was marginally lower, ending its third day of losses at 391.84 points, but still managed to squeeze out a 0.05 weekly gain, dominated by Brexit headlines.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday struck a Brexit deal with the EU, sending the benchmark index to its highest in more than a year, but concerns remain about the deal getting through the British Parliament.
“Everyone is very tired of Brexit. People just want to get this done and look forward to other things, like negotiating a free-trade deal,” Rabobank NV senior market economist Stefan Koopman said.
Uncertainty about the UK’s orderly exit from the EU and other geopolitical tensions, combined with slowing global growth, have rankled financial markets this year.
After a solid increase in the first quarter, gains in the STOXX 600 have tapered off in the second and third.
Fresh data on Friday showed China’s economic growth slowed more than expected in the third quarter.
Investor focus turns to the third-quarter earnings season, which starts in earnest next week.
An earnings recession in Europe is expected to deepen in the third quarter, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
However, early earnings reports were a mixed bag, with weak results from the defense and retail sectors, but a strong report from Swedish medical technology group Getinge AB.
Its shares jumped 16.3 percent to the top of STOXX 600 after reporting a better-than-expected quarterly core profit.
Thales Group, the largest European defense electronics company, dropped 3.5 percent after lowering its revenue growth forecast for this year, while yogurt maker Danone SA tumbled 6.2 percent after narrowing its sales growth outlook for this year.
London Stock Exchange rose 2.4 percent after reporting a higher-than-expected third-quarter income ahead of the planned shareholder vote on its deal to buy data provider Refinitiv.
Germany’s DAX ticked higher, with help from Deutsche Post AG after Berenberg upgraded the stock to “buy,” while gains in banks propped up Spanish and Italian bourses.
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