European shares ended lower on Friday, pressured by further weakness in pharmaceutical companies, advertising company WPP Group's disappointing sales figures and figures showing slower-than-forecast US economic growth.
The UK's FTSE 100 index lost 0.39 percent to 6,160.90, with AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline both down for a second day after reporting disappointing product-pipeline news alongside earnings on Thursday and amid a slew of broker downgrades.
AstraZeneca's shares dropped 3.7 percent, while GlaxoSmithKline lost 2.8 percent.
The rout spread across Europe, with shares of French drug company Sanofi-Aventis down 1.5 percent and Germany's Bayer off by 2 percent.
The French CAC-40 index lost 0.69 percent to 5,396.03 and the German DAX Xetra 30 index declined 0.34 percent to 6,262.54.
US economic growth slowed sharply in the third quarter, increasing at a real seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.6 percent after a 2.6 percent increase in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said. Stocks stumbled in the US, adding to downbeat sentiment in Europe.
One healthcare stock that rose in Europe was Shire, which gained 2.2 percent after it swung to a profit in the third quarter. It's now forecasting annual revenue growth between 12 percent and 14 percent, up from earlier predictions of low double-digit revenue growth.
Danish pharmaceutical maker Novo Nordisk saw its shares slip 3.5 percent, however. The company said sales would increase at a slower rate next year.
Shares in French carmaker PSA Peugeot-Citroen advanced 2.7 percent despite issuing a fresh profit warning, blaming weak car sales in Europe. But third-quarter revenue, down 1.8 percent, wasn't as bad as forecast and the profit warning was largely anticipated.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS