European stocks fell on Friday as a slide in Rio Tinto’s iron ore exports hammered mining majors, while robust earnings from luxury brands were overshadowed by concerns about their sustainability amid surging COVID-19 cases.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index reversed early gains to end lower for a third straight session, down 0.32 percent at 454.74, taking weekly losses to 0.64 percent.
The mining index slumped 2.8 percent as Rio Tinto slipped 3.4 percent after reporting a 12 percent fall in quarterly iron ore shipments ahead of earnings, and dragging other big names such as BHP and Glencore PLC 1.5 percent and 3.5 percent lower respectively.
Concerns about higher inflation and rising COVID-19 infections causing a slowdown in economic recovery have weighed on investors’ minds this week, driving many to the safety of bond markets and making it harder for record-high equities to build on gains.
“On one hand, a strong start to US Q2 earnings season and dovish rhetoric from central banks continued to provide support. [However], several factors have weighed on the outlook, including weaker activity data out of China, signs that growth and earnings have peaked,” said Silvia Dall’Angelo, a senior economist at the international business of Federated Hermes.
Next week, all eyes are likely to be on the European Central Bank meeting, to see if a change in monetary policy is on the cards following its recent strategy update.
Sweden’s Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson lost 9.4 percent, after the telecoms company reported second-quarter core earnings below market estimates, hit by a decline in sales in China.
Luxury stocks tumbled with Burberry down almost 5 percent despite strong sales.
No change to the full-year forecast could signal the improvement cannot be sustained, an analyst said.
Defensive sectors were the gainers, with real estate , utilities and healthcare rising 0.5 percent to 1 percent as worries about COVID-19 remained.
In London, the FTSE 100 ended lower on Friday, as weakness in miners and warnings about a surge in coronavirus infection offset optimism around economic reopening, and the index posted a weekly loss on flagging travel and energy stocks.
After rising as much as 0.6 percent, the blue-chip FTSE 100 index fell 0.06 percent to 7,008.09, with base and precious metal miners down 2.8 percent and 1.8 percent respectively, while banks dropped 1.7 percent.
The British government’s chief medical adviser said that England’s COVID-19 crisis could return again surprisingly quickly and the country is not yet out of the woods, as infections surged ahead of the lifting of legal restrictions.
The FTSE 100 has gained 8.4 percent so far this year on support from cheap interest rates, but higher-than-expected inflation levels, hawkish central bank comments and a jump in local COVID-19 infections have slowed the rise of the blue-chip index.
The index ended the week 1.6 percent lower, its worst week in nearly a month, led by a 5.97 percent weekly drop in travel stocks and 5.14 percent fall in energy stocks.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last