European stock markets rallied on Friday on some positive corporate earnings news, while energy issues found support in higher oil prices, dealers said.
The London FTSE 100 index rose by 0.62 percent to 4,849.3 points, the Frankfurt DAX 30 climbed 0.70 percent to 4,223.04 points and in Paris the CAC 40 added 0.74 percent to 3,980.18.
The DJ Euro STOXX 50 index of leading eurozone shares advanced 0.88 percent to 2,976.39 points.
As European markets closed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had slipped 0.30 percent in New York and the tech-heavy NASDAQ was off 1.01 percent.
European shares were also lifted by the powerful overnight US rally, as a stronger-than-expected regional manufacturing and strong corporate earnings eased fears of a US economic slowdown.
Providing catalyst for US stocks on Thursday was a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia which said that growth had accelerated in the manufacturing sector in the region in April. Its index rose to 25.3 points in April from 11.4 in March.
In European trading on Friday, technology stocks performed well amid positive after-hours first-quarter profits from US Internet search giant Google.
In Amsterdam, the AEX index added 0.17 percent to 356.18, the Swiss SMI was up 0.17 percent at 5,912.85.
In Milan the SP/MIB gained 0.53 percent to 31,325, in Madrid the IBEX-35 rose 0.86 percent to 9,096.4 and in Brussels the BEL-20 closed 0.59 percent higher at 3,086.73.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
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