European stocks declined for a third week on concern that the US economy is stalling, while US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke pledged that the central bank “will do all that it can” to help the recovery.
CRH PLC led construction stocks lower, plunging 13 percent, after forecasting lower earnings. Yell Group PLC tumbled 16 percent after STOXX Ltd said it was removing the company from its benchmark European index. Persimmon PLC gained 8.4 percent after reporting improved earnings.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index slipped 0.4 percent to 251.24 this week as 10 out of 19 industry groups dropped. The gauge has declined 7.7 percent from this year’s high on April 15 after a string of worse-than-forecast economic reports from the US and renewed concern that some European countries will struggle to contain deficits fueled concern that the global economic recovery is losing steam.
“We are going to see a continued string of disappointing US numbers, and while Europe lags the US by about six months, we could expect horrible numbers coming out of Europe by Christmas,” said Christian Blaabjerg, chief equity strategist at Saxo Bank in Copenhagen. “We’ll see some very considerable price retracement in equities.”
National benchmark indices fell in 14 of the 18 western European markets. Germany’s DAX lost 0.9 percent and France’s CAC 40 slid 0.5 percent, while the UK’s FTSE 100 gained 0.1 percent.
CRH, the world’s second-largest maker and distributor of building materials, tumbled by 13 percent after forecasting that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization would probably fall about 10 percent this year.
A gauge of construction and materials shares on the STOXX 600 fell 2.3 percent, the second-worst performance out of 19 industry groups.
Allied Irish Banks PLC fell 6.3 percent and Yell tumbled 16 percent as STOXX said the companies would be among seven removed from the benchmark STOXX 600 from next month after its regular quarterly membership review.
United Internet AG rallied 8.6 percent, the biggest gain on the STOXX 600. The German Internet service provider expects sales to rise about 15 percent to 1.9 billion euros (US$2.4 billion) this year.
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,
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GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
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
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