European stocks snapped two straight weeks of gains on speculation a rally that drove valuations on the Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index to the highest in six years has outpaced the prospects for economic and earnings growth.
A.P. Moeller-Maersk AS slumped 9.8 percent after the owner of the world’s largest container shipper held its biggest share sale since World War II to help finance acquisitions in the oil and terminals businesses. Eiffage SA led a slump among construction firms as reports on US unemployment and factory orders spurred concern that the economy is struggling to recover.
Europe’s STOXX 600 index slid 1.5 percent to 233.85 in the past week. The regional benchmark gauge has still soared 48 percent since March 9 as the French and German economies unexpectedly emerged from recession and profits at companies from Roche Holding AG to L’Oreal SA topped analysts’ estimates. The rally pushed the price-to-earnings ratio on the index to 44.8, near the highest level since September 2003, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Equity strategists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc and UBS AG raised their year-end forecasts for European equities, citing prospects for an economic recovery and a revival in earnings growth. Goldman Sachs lifted its estimate for the STOXX 600 index to 260 from 235, while UBS’s Nick Nelson increased his target for the FTSEurofirst 300 Index to 1,100 from 1,000.
“While we agree that the market tends to make its strongest returns while the economy is still contracting, albeit at a slowing rate, it tends to make further gains as the economy begins to expand,” a team of Goldman Sachs strategists led by Peter Oppenheimer in London wrote in a report dated Sept 3.
The US Federal Reserve expressed “considerable uncertainty” about the strength of the recovery in the world’s largest economy, minutes of its August meeting showed on Wednesday.
EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said he “cannot be optimistic” about unemployment in the region, which is at a 10-year high.
“The figures are worrying,” Almunia told reporters on Wednesday in Brussels after a meeting of European finance ministers. “I cannot be optimistic for the next months because we know from our experience that the negative reaction of the labor market to the economic contraction has a certain lag.”
The euro-area unemployment rate increased to 9.5 percent in July, the highest since June 1999, the EU statistics office in Luxembourg said on Monday. The European Commission forecasts the jobless rate will rise to 11.5 percent next year.
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 —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
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
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