French bank stocks fell; BNP Paribas down 3.6%, Crédit Agricole and SOCGEN down 2.5% each.

Refinitiv on the 18th reported Chinese chipmaker CXMT is preparing to enter the NAND flash market and aims to compete directly with Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. CXMT plans an R&D/production NAND line at a new Beijing fab and has set up a Beijing research institute with NAND development projects. It has discussed the NAND plan with customers, including a newly formed startup that intends to buy CXMT NAND chips for AI systems and supercomputer storage. Timing for the R&D line and any move from development/trial production to mass commercial manufacturing is unclear.

Greek utility PPC signed a memorandum of understanding with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on data centers.