European stocks fell this week, as a slump in commodities shares offset a record one-day rally by the Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index after central banks and regulators stepped in to shore up financial markets.
The benchmark index was headed for its steepest weekly retreat since July 2002, before financial shares on Friday rallied the most in at least 17 years after the US government moved to cleanse banks of troubled assets and international regulators banned investors from betting the value of banking stocks will fall.
“I can’t recall ever seeing a roller-coaster market like this before,” said Carsten Klude, an investment strategist at M.M. Warburg & Co in Hamburg, which oversees the equivalent of US$25 billion. “The whole financial system in the US has gotten out of joint this week.”
The Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index fell 0.8 percent this week even after the 8.3 percent rally on Friday, the biggest since data for the index begins in 1987. The index had slumped 8.4 percent between Sept. 12 and Thursday. The UK’s FTSE 100 Index posted a record advance on Friday and Russia’s RTS Index jumped 22 percent after a two-day suspension and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s pledge of US$20 billion to prop up the market.
National benchmark indexes declined in 13 of the 18 western European markets. France’s CAC 40 slipped 0.2 percent. The UK’s FTSE 100 retreated 2 percent, while Germany’s DAX fell 0.7 percent.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
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