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.
The navy has installed 13 Phalanx Block 1B close-in weapons systems on its warships, increasing their defensive firepower, a defense official said on Saturday. The systems cost the navy NT$10.16 billion (US$314.67 million), while eight additional Block 1A systems are being upgraded in the US and are expected to be delivered next year, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Phalanx system used by Taiwan to defend its warships and key radar installations is a radar-cued gun system capable of firing 4,500 rounds a minute at targets as far away as 1.5km, the official said. With their superior range of
RACE FOR CHIPS: The Dresden site would help Europe reduce its reliance on Asia for semiconductors, while Germany aims to produce one-fifth of the world’s chips by 2030 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday broke ground in Dresden, Germany, on its first European plant as the continent seeks to safeguard its chip supplies amid growing US-China tensions. TSMC chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) attended the event, together with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the heads of Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors NV and Robert Bosch GmbH, which each hold a 10 percent stake in the venture. TSMC owns a 70 percent stake in the plant. “Together with our partners, Bosch, Infineon and NXP, we are building our Dresden facility to meet the
RECOVERY: Overall, average income across all age groups increased, climbing to a record NT$709,000 last year, on the back of an improved economy, the DGBAS said Taiwanese workers under the age of 30 last year, on average, earned an annual income of NT$545,931 (US$17,044), a new high, as the economy continued to improve, data released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. That equated to monthly earnings of NT$45,494 per person, and marked an increase from NT$535,667 in 2022, the data showed. In addition to an improved economy, average incomes rose as the unemployment rate declined and the minimum wage rose, the statistics agency said. Overall, average income in Taiwan also hit a new record of NT$709,000 last year, up from NT$704,000 in 2022, the data
CARROT AND STICK: Palauan president said in 2020 the Chinese ambassador to a neighboring country pledged to flood his country with tourists if it switches alliance Beijing weaponized tourism to the Pacific archipelago of Palau over its allegiance to Taiwan and its accusations that China was behind a major cyberattack there, Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr told The Associated Press (AP). Palau, along with Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, is one of the three Pacific nations to recognize Taiwan as an independent democracy. Taipei’s allies in the Pacific have dwindled from six countries in 2019. Nauru abandoned its ties in January. Whipps told the AP in an interview late on Thursday that, in 2020, while he was running for his current post, the Chinese ambassador to a neighboring country