European stocks rose for a third week as earnings from companies including Storebrand ASA and Royal Dutch Shell PLC beat estimates and the US Treasury and the Bank of England signaled the worst of the credit turmoil is over.
Storebrand, Norway’s largest publicly traded insurer, led insurers higher after reporting a first-quarter profit that beat analysts’ projections of a net loss. Shell and BP PLC, Europe’s largest oil producers, also posted profit that topped estimates.
Earnings reports provide “some glimmering of hope the worst might be over,” Andrew Bell, head of research and strategy at Rensburg Sheppards PLC in London, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
The Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index added 2.3 percent to 329.21 this past week, the highest since Feb. 27. The STOXX 50 advanced 2.6 percent and the Euro STOXX 50, a measure for the euro region, increased 2.2 percent.
Concern that credit-market losses will lower earnings and send the US into recession pushed the STOXX 600 down as much as 27 percent from a record on June 1. Since March 17, that loss has been cut to 18 percent after earnings reports from Ericsson AB to Bayer AG exceeded analyst projections and central banks moved to shore up the financial system.
National indexes rose in all 18 western European markets, except Iceland. France’s CAC 40 added 1.8 percent and Germany’s DAX advanced 2.1 percent. The UK’s FTSE 100 climbed 2 percent.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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