Stock Market

Asian stocks rose on Thursday as technology stocks rallied after positive revenue figures from chipmaking giant TSMC sparked more optimism over artificial intelligence, with Japanese stocks crossing new peaks. 

Airline group IAG saw its share price surge Wednesday, climbing more than 3% after Morgan Stanley double-upgraded the stock to Overweight from Underweight, raising the price target to €2.80 from €2.10.

Global shares were mixed on Tuesday as investors waited to see if U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell would sound supportive of rate cuts after evidence the U.S. labour market is cooling.

Airlines for America said U.S carriers plan to fly more than 26,000 daily flights this summer, up nearly 1,400 over 2023, or 5.6%, when they carried 255 million passengers. The summer travel season forecast is for June 1 to Aug. 31.

Equity markets were closed for the Independence day holiday on Thursday, but the Wall Street indexes were sitting at record highs hit earlier this week as a swathe of soft economic readings pushed up bets that the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates by September.

“Given deterioration in the market environment and elective decisions we have made to refocus our investments in strategically prioritized areas, we have reassessed certain growth assumptions, resulting in a non-cash impairment of 11.4 billion Swedish crowns ($1.1 billion),” said Vonage CEO Niklas Heuveldop, who got the top job in February.

Friday sees the release of the July nonfarm payrolls report, which could provide further clues over when the U.S. central bank will start its rate-cutting cycle, given strength in the labor market is another key consideration for the Fed in cutting interest rates. 

Global Training Solutions Limited and Smartech Future Limited, both in China, as well as Grace Air (Pty) Ltd and Livingston Aerospace Limited of the United Kingdom, were added because of their ties to the Test Flying Academy of South Africa and the training of China’s military forces using Western and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)…

In the London market, real estate stocks were among the top gainers with a 1.2% rise after a Nationwide report showed British house prices showed a small gain in June from May but the impact of higher interest rates still weighed on the property market.

European equities have been boosted by the news that Britain’s economy grew 0.7% in the first three months of this year compared with the previous quarter, above an initial estimate of 0.6% growth.