Oil prices climbed by more than US$1 a barrel on Friday, one day after China's decision to abandon its currency peg to the US dollar, making oil prices cheaper for China, the world's second-largest consumer of crude.
The renewed terror attacks on London's public transit system led to some nervousness on the markets. But Thursday's attacks were much less serious than the initial assault two weeks ago and analysts said their effects had dissipated by Friday. A new incident on Friday, with police killing a suspect on a London subway train, also did not brake prices.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose US$1.52 to settle at US$58.65 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange as bargain hunters stepped in. The contract had dropped US$0.89 on Thursday to close at US$57.13 after the explosions in London raised travel concerns.
In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures rose US$0.013 to US$1.5819 a gallon while gasoline rose US$0.016 to US$1.697 a gallon. On London's International Petroleum Exchange, September Brent crude futures climbed US$1.86 to settle at US$57.58 a barrel.
China's abandoning the currency peg was "a slight net positive" for country's short-term oil demand, since imported crude will be cheaper in yuan terms, Barclays Capital said.
"If we are right, then the flow of diesel and gasoline exports out of China could slow down and crude oil imports pick up," said Kevin Norrish, director of commodity research.
But some analysts suggested that Beijing's currency moves will eventually lead to less domestic oil consumption -- and falling prices.
LIMITED IMPACT: Investor confidence was likely sustained by its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as only less advanced chips are made in Nanjing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) saw its stock price close steady yesterday in a sign that the loss of the validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing, China, fab should have a mild impact on the world’s biggest contract chipmaker financially and technologically. Media reports about the waiver loss sent TSMC down 1.29 percent during the early trading session yesterday, but the stock soon regained strength and ended at NT$1,160, unchanged from Tuesday. Investors’ confidence in TSMC was likely built on its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as Chinese customers contributed about 9 percent to TSMC’s revenue last
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp, yesterday said that revenue last month rose 10.61 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in cloud and networking products amid continued front-loading orders for artificial intelligence (AI) server racks. Consolidated revenue expanded to NT$606.51 billion (US$19.81 billion) last month from NT$548.31 billion a year earlier, marking the highest ever in August, the company said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue was down 1.2 percent from NT$613.86 billion. Hon Hai, which is also a major iPhone assembler, added that its electronic components division saw significant revenue growth last month, boosted
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