The dollar fell for a record ninth day against the euro as stocks tumbled and concern mounted that President George W. Bush will lead an attack against Iraq without the support its biggest European allies.
The US currency dropped to a three-year low of US$1.0826 per euro at 5:16pm in New York from US$1.0745 on Thursday. It has declined every day since Jan. 14, the longest losing streak since the 12-nation currency started trading four years ago. The dollar lost 1.4 percent against the euro this week.
"There is a sense that the US is willing to go at it alone, which means that the risks are even bigger in terms of the impact on the economy and the potential for a terrorist reprisal on the US," said Rebecca Patterson, a currency strategist at JP Morgan Chase & Co, the fifth-largest trader in the US$1.2 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market. The dollar may weaken to US$1.10 next week, Patterson said.
The dollar may weaken to US$1.10 to US$1.15 per euro in coming weeks, he said.
The benchmark 4 percent 2012 Treasury note gained 1/16, or 63 cents per US$1,000 face amount, to 100 9/16. Its yield fell 1 basis point to 3.93 percent.
Hans Blix, the UN chief weapons inspector, is scheduled to detail his findings to the Security Council on Monday.
Concern is mounting that a war to disarm Iraq may crimp economic growth, making it harder for the US to attract the US$1.4 billion a day in foreign investment it needs to offset the shortfall in its current account -- the broadest measure of international trade.
"Economic data in the US is consistently disappointing, and a growing number of investors are looking to the euro as a real alternative,'' said Lara Rhame, a foreign-exchange analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. The dollar may weaken to US$1.10 per euro next week, she said.
Consumer confidence this month fell to the lowest level since October, and the number of workers filing new claims for state unemployment benefits rose for the first week in three in the week ended Saturday.
On Thursday, a government report is expected to show the economy grew at a 1 percent rate in the fourth quarter, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
That compares with previous estimates of 4 percent.
"We have been overweight euro-denominated assets versus the dollar for some time now, and we are still holding to it -- despite growth in Europe, which seems to be worse than in the US," said Anthony Borthwick, who helps manage US$15 billion at PanAgora Asset Management in Boston.
Foreign government institutions and central banks reduced their holdings of US Treasury and agency debt by US$3.32 billion to US$857.77 billion in the two weeks ended Jan. 22, according to Federal Reserve figures. Still, that 0.3 percent decline compares with a 19 percent rise in their Treasury and agency holdings during the past 12 months.
An 18.9 percent decline against the euro during the past 12 months is starting to benefit US companies with overseas operations, analysts said.
The greenback was little changed against the yen this week, weakening 0.01 percent to Japanese yen 117.82.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day