European shares closed higher on Friday, marking weekly gains as investors focused on a broadly supportive earnings season and improving economic data in Europe rather than rising US-China tensions.
The main indices spent the morning in the red after US President Donald Trump moved to ban US transactions with the Chinese owners of messaging app WeChat (微信) and video-sharing app TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動), further escalating friction with Beijing.
Amsterdam-listed Prosus NV, with its biggest investment in WeChat owner Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), fell 4 percent.
However, market stabilized later, boosted by telecoms, technology and healthcare stocks.
The pan-European STOXX 600, which rose 0.3 percent for the day, closed out with weekly gains of 2 percent.
German stocks rose 0.7 percent, while London’s FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 40 were flat, but all logged weekly rises.
Data showed that US jobs last month increased by a better-than-expected 1.763 million, although the pace of recovery slowed amid a resurgence in new COVID-19 infections, pressuring the White House and the US Congress to agree another aid package.
“The jobs numbers were surprisingly good,” said Nancy Tengler, chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments. “But we expect a moderation in jobs improvement in the near term, as businesses wait to see what Washington comes up with.”
With the bulk of the European earnings season over, investors were relieved that most companies had exceeded analysts’ lowered forecasts for quarterly profits.
About 60 percent of the STOXX 600 companies that have reported so far beat estimates, Refinitiv data showed.
Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC jumped 10.9 percent after saying that it had started manufacturing remdesivir, an approved treatment for COVID-19 from US-based Gilead Sciences Inc, and it raised its annual sales outlook for two of its biggest divisions.
Deutsche Telekom AG, which owns 43 percent of T-Mobile US Inc, rose 2.7 percent after the US firm added more monthly subscribers than expected in the second quarter of this year and said it surpassed rival AT&T Inc.
The broader telecoms index rose 1 percent to lead sectoral gains, although stocks considered more sensitive to business cycles, including banks, miners and oil and gas companies, handed back some of this week’s steady gains.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
PRECEDENTED TIMES: In news that surely does not shock, AI and tech exports drove a banner for exports last year as Taiwan’s economic growth experienced a flood tide Taiwan’s exports delivered a blockbuster finish to last year with last month’s shipments rising at the second-highest pace on record as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and advanced computing remained strong, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Exports surged 43.4 percent from a year earlier to US$62.48 billion last month, extending growth to 26 consecutive months. Imports climbed 14.9 percent to US$43.04 billion, the second-highest monthly level historically, resulting in a trade surplus of US$19.43 billion — more than double that of the year before. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) described the performance as “surprisingly outstanding,” forecasting export growth
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