European stocks had the biggest weekly drop in a month after JPMorgan Chase & Co reported a US$1.5 billion loss on mortgage-backed assets, deepening concern that banks will post more writedowns.
Hypo Real Estate Holding AG fell as the German lender said profit tumbled 95 percent. Standard Chartered PLC sank after analysts downgraded the shares on speculation the bank may have to raise capital. Swiss Life Holdings led insurers lower after it agreed to buy stakes in MLP AG and AWD Holding AG Eurasian Natural Resources Corp paced a retreat among mining companies.
Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index slipped 0.7 percent to 287.25, the steepest decline since the week ended July 11. The benchmark is down 21 percent this year as asset writedowns and credit losses at financial firms topped US$500 billion worldwide, threatening to prolong the slowdown in global economic growth.
JPMorgan’s figures “spooked investors and triggered profit-taking in financials,” said Piers Hillier, the London-based head of European equities at WestLB Mellon Asset Management, who oversees the equivalent of US$8.8 billion.
“Concern Standard Chartered will need to raise more capital didn’t help. We’ve also seen a sharp fall-off in commodities,” he said.
Crude oil, gold, silver and copper all retreated last week as a strengthening dollar reduced the appeal of commodities as alternative investments.
National benchmark indexes declined in 11 of the 18 western European markets. France’s CAC 40 dropped 0.9 percent. The UK’s FTSE 100 fell 0.6 percent, while Germany’s DAX sank 1.8 percent.
Reports also weighed on equities as higher-than-forecast US consumer prices and jobless claims added to concern inflation is accelerating while growth slows. Europe’s economy contracted in the second quarter for the first time since the launch of the euro almost a decade ago.
Europe’s Stoxx 600 Banks Index has lost 30 percent this year, the steepest slump among 18 groups in the broader index.
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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