Europe’s Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index resumed gains this week, erasing its loss for the year and posting a record monthly rally amid better-than-expected earnings and speculation that the global recession is easing.
BASF SE, the world’s biggest chemical company, Sanofi-Aventis SA and Siemens AG rose as their profits topped forecasts. Banks surged to the highest since December on expectations the industry is recovering from the credit crisis.
The STOXX 600 added 2.3 percent to 200.23 in the four days this week, its seventh advance in eight weeks. Europe’s regional benchmark climbed 13 percent last month, the biggest monthly gain since records began in 1987. The measure, which is now up 0.9 percent for the year, did not update on Friday, as all European markets except the UK and Denmark were closed.
Banks led the April advance as Credit Suisse Group AG beat analysts’ profit forecasts and Barclays PLC indicated its first-quarter performance was “well ahead” of last year. Confidence in the outlook for the European economy rose, a report showed this week, while investors also speculated that government plans to purchase illiquid assets from banks will pull the global economy out of its recession.
“We have significant numbers supporting our general expectation that the economy will turn around in late 2009,” said Henrik Drusebjerg, a senior strategist at Nordea in Copenhagen. “If that is the case, equity markets will turn around six to nine months before.”
The UK’s FTSE 100 rallied 2.1 percent in the week, Germany’s DAX rose 2 percent and France’s CAC 40 added 1.8 percent. Sweden’s OMX Stockholm 30 Index lost 2 percent as profit at Ericsson AB fell for a seventh straight quarter.
BASF surged 5.3 percent after it reported first-quarter net income of 375 million euros (US$498.8 million), beating the 124 million euro average estimate of analysts.
Sanofi jumped 7.5 percent. France’s largest drugmaker said April 29 that first-quarter adjusted net income climbed 16 percent to 2.18 billion euros, helped by increased demand for its Lantus medicine for diabetics.
That beat the 1.98 billion-euro median estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Siemens, Europe’s largest engineering company, advanced 3.5 percent. Operating profit at the company’s main industry, energy and health-care units, referred to as “sector profit,” climbed to 1.84 billion euros from 1.29 billion euros, the company said on Wednesday. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey predicted 1.65 billion euros.
More than half of the 132 companies in the STOXX 600 that reported earnings results from April 7 to Thursday exceeded analysts’ predictions, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That trails the 70 percent of companies in the S&P 500 that beat estimates.
The STOXX 600 Banks Index climbed 5 percent to the highest since Dec. 10. The measure, the heaviest among 19 industries in the broader STOXX 600, tumbled 83 percent from April 2007 to this March as global losses tied to subprime mortgages at financial firms climbed toward more than US$1.3 trillion.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS