European shares ended lower on Friday and dropped nearly 2 percent this week with travel and banking shares leading the declines over caution around rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine ahead of the weekend.
Caution overtook markets across the globe as Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine said they planned to evacuate their breakaway region’s residents to Russia, a shock turn in a conflict the West believes Moscow plans to use to justify an invasion of Ukraine.
The pan-European STOXX 600 fell 0.8 percent and dropped 1.9 percent for the week with travel and banking shares the top weekly losers.
However, news of US the secretary of state agreeing to a meeting next week with the Russian minister of foreign affairs raised hopes of a diplomatic solution and helped limit losses somewhat.
“There is a higher probability either of a diplomatic solution or some kind of an incursion, but fairly contained,” PineBridge Investments multiasset manager Hani Redha said.
Banking shares have come under pressure this week as rising conflict fears pushed investors toward safer assets, driving short-term European yields lower, which have fallen 12 basis points this week.
Markets have gyrated this week following news of shelling in eastern Ukraine and warnings from Western leaders that an invasion could happen at any time, even though Moscow has denied it.
While earnings continued to be largely supportive, investors also feared aggressive monetary policy tightening measures from the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks to combat surging inflation.
“Since late last year, we began to reduce risk because we saw a lot of policy withdrawal challenges that markets will have to go through,” Redha said.
Allianz SE fell 3.8 percent and was the top drag on the STOXX 600 after it announced big bonus cuts for its CEO and board, and a settlement with a “vast majority” of investors, as it braces for the outcome of US regulatory investigations into a multibillion-dollar trading debacle at its funds arm.
Finnish drug manufacturer Orion Corp jumped 22.2 percent to the top of STOXX 600 following positive trial results for its prostate cancer treatment.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS