The New Taiwan dollar jumped 0.4 percent to NT$32.704 against the US dollar yesterday, after touching NT$32.62, the highest since Aug. 18, according to Taipei Forex Inc.
The dollar fell against 11 of the 15 most-active Asia-Pacific currencies before reports that will probably show a deepening US housing market slump. Interest-rate futures show investors see a 51 percent chance the Federal Reserve will lower its benchmark at a March meeting, up from 17 percent on Nov. 15.
"This is positive for Asian currencies and they will be pushed up," said Shahab Jalinoos, head of Asian currency strategy at ABN Amro Bank NV in Singapore. "We've seen the dollar drop and the underlying fundamentals for the US are pointing down."
South Korea's won climbed 0.2 percent to 930.60 against the dollar at the 3pm close of onshore trading, after advancing as high as 927, the strongest since Oct. 24, 1997, according to Seoul Money Brokerage Services Ltd.
The National Association of Realtors' will release a report today showing purchases of previously owned homes dropped 0.5 percent last month, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey.
US President George W. Bush's economic advisers on Nov. 21 said in their semi-annual forecast that the US economy will grow 2.9 percent next year, down from 3.1 percent this year and slower than the 3.6 percent prediction in June.
By contrast, Taiwan's statistics bureau on Thursday raised its growth estimate for this year to 4.39 percent from 4.28 percent.
Malaysia's economy expanded 5.8 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the central bank said on Thursday. The Philippine economy may have grown as much as 5.8 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, Economic Planning Director Dennis Arroyo said last week.
The Malaysian ringgit was little changed at 3.6370 after touching 3.6265, the highest since May 31, and the Thai baht edged up 0.2 percent to 36.42. The Philippine peso gained 0.1 percent to 49.65 and the Indonesian rupiah strengthened 0.1 percent to 9,136, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The won also rose as the yield premium on South Korean government bonds stayed near their highest level since April. The extra yield investors receive buying 10-year won-denominated debt over similar-maturity US notes rose to 0.34 percentage point.
"The dollar is weakening across the board and the won is also benefiting," said Hideki Hayashi, a foreign-exchange strategist in Tokyo at Shinko Securities Co. "When you think where you park money for now, South Korea, where the yield premium has been widening, has an advantage."
The currency may trade between 925 and 935 in a week, Hayashi said.
The won's strength is mainly because of "psychological factors" and authorities are closely monitoring moves in the currency, Oh Jae-kwon, head of the central bank's foreign exchange market operations team, said in an interview in Seoul yesterday. It's "not desirable to bet on an extreme rise," he said.
Finance Minister Kwon Okyu convened a government meeting this morning to discuss ways to help exporters suffering from the won's rise against the yen, the ministry said in a statement released in Gwacheon, South Korea.
The government will allow companies to borrow more through the Export and Import Bank of Korea, and extend the maturity on loans for businesses who are having problems because of the exchange rate, the ministry said.
The won on Nov. 10 rose to the highest against the yen since Nov. 14, 1997, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts