The dollar suffered a setback against other leading currencies on Friday triggered by unexpectedly weak US economic figures, after a sustained period of strength during the past two weeks.
The single European currency stood at US$1.2038 from US$1.1980 late on Thursday in New York.
The dollar traded at ¥107.70 from ¥108.08 on Thursday.
The euro, which earlier this week sank to a near five-month low of US$1.1869, climbed back above the psychologically important US$1.20 mark, while sterling clambered above US$1.80 briefly after slumping to next year's low of US$1.7764 on Thursday.
Soft US industrial output and consumer confidence data from and the lack of any hawkish comment from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan pushed the dollar lower.
"There was a shakeout after the University of Michigan numbers," said 4CAST analyst Paul Bednarczyk.
The widely-watched consumer sentiment index from the University of Michigan for April unexpectedly fell to 93.2 points -- its weakest since December -- while earlier US industrial production fell for the first time in 10 months in April.
The weak US numbers stuck out against some upbeat figures published recently, causing the the dollar to slip amid the thin pre-weekend trade, Bednarczyk added.
But despite Friday's developments, markets are still looking at an August US rate hike, given the overall strength of recent data, among them the all important labor market report, trade and retail sales numbers.
The market still expects a US rate hike in August, with the two Federal Reserve meetings before then unlikely to bring any change.
Markets had also been wary of remarks from Greenspan on Friday but nothing of great importance materialized.
But the Fed chairman is set to appear before the Joint Economic Committee next Wednesday in what is being touted as the week's key event.
"This speech may set the tone for interest rates for the next few months," said John Butler, HSBC economist.
Elsewhere, sterling found some support from a sharp rise in data for average British earnings and continued falls in jobless levels, as the case strengthened for a Bank of England rate hike in May.
The euro was changing hands at US$1.2083 from US$1.1980 late on Thursday in New York, ¥129.67 (¥129.47), £0.6679 (£0.6682) and 1.5519 Swiss francs (Sf1.5518).
The dollar stood at ¥107.70 (¥108.08) and 1.2892 Swiss francs (Sf1.2952).
The pound was at US$1.8022 (US$1.7920), ¥194.19 (¥193.82) and 2.3232 Swiss francs (Sf2.3214).
On the London Bullion Market, the price of an ounce of gold stood at US$400.85 against US$398.25 late on Thursday.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to