The dollar fell Friday against other major currencies, including a more than one cent drop against the euro, after the US January employment report showed a smaller than expected gain in payrolls.
The single European currency spiked up to US$1.2701 in the wake of the figures, from US$1.2545 shortly before their release. The euro had stood at US$1.2547 late on Thursday in New York.
The dollar fell to ¥105.94 from ¥106.70.
US businesses hired 112,000 extra people in January -- a three-year record -- as the jobless rate dipped to 5.6 percent from 5.7 percent in December, the government reported.
But market expectations had been for a rise in non-farm payrolls closer to 200,000.
Traders sold off the dollar on concerns that weak US job growth would keep the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates for the foreseeable future.
Low US interest rates -- the Fed's benchmark lending rate stands at 1.0 percent, half the benchmark rate for the European Central Bank -- have been a key factor behind the dollar's weakness in recent months, analysts say.
The US runs a current account deficit amounting to about 5 percent of GDP, and the federal government has an annual budget deficit of roughly half a trillion dollars.
The need to attract foreign capital to finance these deficits makes low interest rates a handicap for the dollar.
Economists said that the US payroll disappointment made it unlikely that the Fed would want to raise interest rates soon. Many US economists believe the central bank will not tighten policy until payrolls grow by 200,000 or more for several months in succession.
"With this in mind, we suspect that the dollar will continue to slide from here, barring any nasty shocks from the G7 meeting," said Steve Barrow, currency strategist at Bear Stearns.
The meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors getting under way in Boca Raton, Florida was the next focal point for financial markets.
Analysts widely consider it unlikely that the G7 will mount any coordinated effort to halt the dollar's decline in the meeting, which was to end yesterday.
In any case, "there is little, almost nothing, the G7 can do to stop the dollar decline. Amid a huge trade deficit and a ballooning budget deficit they cannot force investors to buy dollar assets," said Paul Podolsky, currency strategist at Fleet Global Markets.
The euro was changing hands at US$1.2701 from US$1.2547 late on Thursday in New York, ¥134.13 (¥132.78), £.6877 (¥0.6837) and 1.5664 Swiss francs (Sf1.5687).
The dollar stood at ¥105.56 (¥105.82) and 1.2329 Swiss francs (Sf1.2500).
The pound was at US$1.8475 (US$1.8334), ¥194.98 (¥193.98) and 2.2773 Swiss francs (Sf2.2919).
On the London Bullion Market, the price of an ounce of gold stood at US$404.25 against US$399.55 late on Thursday.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six