European stocks snapped two straight weeks of gains on speculation a rally that drove valuations on the Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index to the highest in six years has outpaced the prospects for economic and earnings growth.
A.P. Moeller-Maersk AS slumped 9.8 percent after the owner of the world’s largest container shipper held its biggest share sale since World War II to help finance acquisitions in the oil and terminals businesses. Eiffage SA led a slump among construction firms as reports on US unemployment and factory orders spurred concern that the economy is struggling to recover.
Europe’s STOXX 600 index slid 1.5 percent to 233.85 in the past week. The regional benchmark gauge has still soared 48 percent since March 9 as the French and German economies unexpectedly emerged from recession and profits at companies from Roche Holding AG to L’Oreal SA topped analysts’ estimates. The rally pushed the price-to-earnings ratio on the index to 44.8, near the highest level since September 2003, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Equity strategists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc and UBS AG raised their year-end forecasts for European equities, citing prospects for an economic recovery and a revival in earnings growth. Goldman Sachs lifted its estimate for the STOXX 600 index to 260 from 235, while UBS’s Nick Nelson increased his target for the FTSEurofirst 300 Index to 1,100 from 1,000.
“While we agree that the market tends to make its strongest returns while the economy is still contracting, albeit at a slowing rate, it tends to make further gains as the economy begins to expand,” a team of Goldman Sachs strategists led by Peter Oppenheimer in London wrote in a report dated Sept 3.
The US Federal Reserve expressed “considerable uncertainty” about the strength of the recovery in the world’s largest economy, minutes of its August meeting showed on Wednesday.
EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said he “cannot be optimistic” about unemployment in the region, which is at a 10-year high.
“The figures are worrying,” Almunia told reporters on Wednesday in Brussels after a meeting of European finance ministers. “I cannot be optimistic for the next months because we know from our experience that the negative reaction of the labor market to the economic contraction has a certain lag.”
The euro-area unemployment rate increased to 9.5 percent in July, the highest since June 1999, the EU statistics office in Luxembourg said on Monday. The European Commission forecasts the jobless rate will rise to 11.5 percent next year.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
RSS