European stocks rose, rebounding after the Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index posted its biggest annual slump on record, as higher metals prices lifted mining companies and investors speculated governments will step up efforts to revive the global economy.
Rio Tinto Group surged 14 percent, leading a rally in raw-material producers, the region’s worst performing industry group last year. BHP Billiton Ltd and Anglo American PLC added more than 8 percent as copper gained for a fourth day in London.
The Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index jumped 6.3 percent this week, extending its rise to 12 percent since Nov. 21. Stocks climbed as US president-elect Barack Obama pledged to stimulate growth with the biggest infrastructure investment since the 1950s and the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to as low as 0 percent to combat the worst financial crisis in seven decades.
“We’re turning the page,” said Jacques Porta, a fund manager at Ofi Patrimoine in Paris, which oversees US$615 million. “We’ve left the page of panic and deep recession. Expectations of Obama and his plan are enormous.”
The STOXX 600 added 3.1 percent to 204.46 in London, the biggest advance on the first trading day of the year since 2003.
The gauge dropped 46 percent last year as credit-related losses and writedowns at financial firms that topped US$1 trillion pushed the US, Europe and Japan into the first simultaneous recessions since World War II.
Germany’s DAX Index added 3.4 percent as Siemens AG advanced. The UK’s FTSE 100 Index gained 2.9 percent.
All 19 industry groups in Europe’s STOXX 600 slid at least 18 percent last year. Gauges of miners and banks both retreated 65 percent as the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials dropped a record 36 percent and credit losses at European financial firms neared US$300 billion.
Rio Tinto, the world’s third-largest mining company, added 14 percent on Friday. Rio slumped 72 percent last year.
BHP Billiton, the biggest mining company, climbed 8.6 percent. Anglo American, the fourth-largest diversified mining company, added 11 percent.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe’s largest oil company, gained 4.9 percent. BP PLC, the second-biggest, added 5.1 percent.
The benchmark index for European options declined on Friday. The VSTOXX Index slid 4.1 percent to 42.08. The gauge measures the cost of using options as insurance against declines in the Euro STOXX 50 Index.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
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