European stocks were little changed this week as better-than-expected economic data from China and the US offset concern that debt ceiling talks will weigh on recovering growth in the world’s biggest economy.
The STOXX 600 Europe Index fell less than 0.1 percent to 287.03 this week. The measure climbed to its highest level since February 2011 last week amid speculation that US companies’ earnings would exceed analysts’ estimates.
National benchmark indeces rose in 12 of Europe’s 18 western markets. France’s CAC 40 Index added 1 percent, the UK’s FTSE 100 Index gained 0.5 percent and Germany’s DAX fell by 0.2 percent.
China’s economic growth accelerated for the first time in two years as Beijing’s efforts to revive demand drove a rebound in industrial output and retail sales.
China’s GDP advanced 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday.
The US economy picked up across much of the country last month, boosted by auto and home sales, even as the outlook for unemployment showed few signs of improvement, the US Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in its Beige Book survey.
US builders broke ground on more houses than forecast last month. Starts climbed 12.1 percent to a 954,000 annual rate, the most since June 2008, the US Department of Commerce said on Thursday.
The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance payments fell more than forecast last week. Applications for jobless benefits decreased by 37,000 to 335,000 in the week ended on Saturday last week, the lowest since the period ended Jan. 19, 2008, US Department of Labor data showed.
With as little as a month until the US runs out of money to pay its bills, US President Barack Obama this week warned Republicans in the US Congress not to use the need for a debt limit increase to force through new spending cuts.
US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner said the so-called extraordinary measures he is taking to avoid breaching the debt ceiling would only work until the middle of next month or early March. He added that failure to raise the limit could “impose severe economic hardship” on the US.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
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