European stocks were little changed, with the STOXX Europe 600 Index advancing for a seventh week, as a better-than-expected report on US business activity offset consumer-confidence data that missed forecasts.
Societe Generale SA slipped 2.2 percent after Les Echos reported that the French bank’s Russian unit posted a decline in first-quarter profit. BNP Paribas SA fell 2.4 percent as a person familiar with the matter said US authorities were seeking more than US$10 billion from the bank to settle investigations into dealings with sanctioned countries. Rio Tinto Group and BHP Billiton Ltd slid as a gauge of commodity producers declined the most on the STOXX 600.
The STOXX 600 fell 0.1 percent to 344.24 at the close of trading. The benchmark gauge climbed 0.7 percent this week, capping its longest streak of weekly gains since 2012. It has risen 1.9 percent in May as European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi pledged to ease monetary policy this month if necessary.
“A generally positive week for global equities has been achieved despite light volumes on limited data,” said Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown PLC in London. “Investors have been searching for the next direct catalyst, but in the meantime have been lightened by an improving US economy and, in particular, on hopes that next week will herald some fresh monetary stimulus from the European Central Bank.”
Draghi said this month he’s “comfortable” to act this month June to expand the central bank’s easing policy. The bank is to announce its monetary policy decision on Thursday. ECB Executive Board member Yves Mersch said in Tokyo on Wednesday that the central bank was working on a package of measures to fuel price growth and stimulate the economy, which could include a negative deposit rate for the first time.
US consumer confidence fell last month more than forecast.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of sentiment dropped to 81.9 last month from 84.1 in April. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 82.5 after an initial reading last month of 81.8.
National benchmark indices declined in eight of 17 western European markets trading on Friday. Copenhagen’s bourse was closed for a holiday. France’s CAC 40 fell 0.2 percent, Germany’s DAX added less than 0.1 percent,and the UK’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.4 percent.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
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