European stocks fell to the lowest in three months this week on concerns that banks would post more losses and a US manufacturing index provided the latest evidence the world's largest economy is slipping into recession.
UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG dropped after Goldman Sachs Group Inc forecast more writedowns and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc cut earnings estimates for the banks. Groupe Danone SA, the world’s largest yogurt maker, and Unilever led losses among the food and beverage industry after UBS recommended selling the shares. Trinity Mirror PLC declined as Morgan Stanley downgraded European media stocks.
The Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index dropped 3.5 percent to 295.08, bringing the total fall for the past three weeks to 8.4 percent, ending the week at its lowest since March 17. The STOXX 50 retreated 3.3 percent and the Euro STOXX 50 slid 3.8 percent.
“It will take quite some time before we see an improvement in the banks and in the earnings situation,” Petra von Kerssenbrock, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
“It’s too early to invest” in financial stocks, she added.
National benchmark indexes retreated in 16 of the 18 western European markets. Germany’s DAX Index fell 2.8 percent and France’s CAC 40 lost 3.7 percent. The UK’s FTSE 100 slipped 3.1 percent.
The benchmark STOXX 600 has fallen 19 percent this year on concerns that credit-related losses approaching US$400 billion, record oil prices and higher inflation will push the US economy into a recession.
The next 18 months “will be a very testing time,” Julian Chillingworth, London-based chief investment officer at Rathbone Brothers PLC said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “It’s really like the early ‘90s. I don’t think the depth of the slowdown will be as deep but it could be as long.”
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)