The dollar traded mainly higher on Friday as better-than-expected US data helped shift expectations on healthy growth going forward in the world's biggest economy.
However, the greenback lost ground against the New Taiwan dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange on Friday, decreasing NT$0.01 to close at NT$33.009.
A total of US$1.4 billion changed hands during the day's trading.
The US currency opened higher at NT$32.917, and fluctuated between NT$32.917 and NT$33.107.
The euro slipped to US$1.3442 at 9pm GMT from US$1.3454 in New York late on Thursday, after earlier in the day slipping below the US$1.34 mark for the first time in almost two months.
The US dollar rose to ?122.09 -- hitting its highest level since late January -- from ?121.71 on Thursday.
The US currency picked up momentum after data showed the US economy added a net 157,000 jobs last month, better than expected. Analysts said the report suggests the economy is coming out of its first-quarter soft patch but that inflation remains only moderate.
The payrolls are a key event for the market, which is anxious for fresh clues on the outlook for US interest rates.
The Federal Reserve has been on hold for nearly a year with base US rates at 5.25 percent. In recent months, market participants have shifted away from a perception that the Fed will need to cut rates to stimulate flagging growth.
Stephen Gallagher, economist at Societe Generale, said he has now thrown in the towel on his forecast for a Fed rate cut this year, and now sees the next move by the US central bank as a rate hike.
"More and more we are convinced the mid-cycle slowdown has ended and the economy is currently firming to trend," Gallagher said. "Against a backdrop of stubborn inflation and tight labor markets, our analysis going forward will be more focused on the timing of rate hikes, not cuts."
Meanwhile, the closely watched US ISM survey on manufacturing activity came in above forecasts, rising to 55.0 last month from 54.7 in April to reach its highest level for 12 months.
Analysts said the good news on the US economy was enough to offset evidence of moderating inflation, with the annual core PCE indicator -- the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation -- dropping to a 13-month low of 2 percent, according to a US Commerce Department report.
The report also showed US consumer income down 0.1 percent in April, while spending rose 0.5 percent.
While the data as a whole shored up the dollar, there was some skepticism about the perceived improvement in the figures.
"The strength in May payrolls has largely emerged from services jobs, the durability of which remains doubtful," Ashraf Laidi at CMC Markets said.
Against this backdrop, the outlook for US interest rates is still cloudy, he noted.
Michael Woolfolk at Bank of New York said the easing inflation indicators suggest the Fed will be in no hurry to hike rates, and this limited the dollar's rally. But he said the greenback is keeping upward momentum.
"The real surprise in this morning's price action was not the relatively modest reaction to nonfarm payrolls and personal income and spending, but rather the positive dollar tone," he said.
"A ubiquitous sense of economic recovery pervades the market right now, which is unequivocally positive for the dollar. ... While players are having difficulty breaking below the 1.3400 level in the euro-dollar, further signs of the US economic rebound should make this a fait accompli by next week," Woolfolk said.
Next week's market focus is on Thursday's meeting of the European Central Bank in which the bank is seen as almost certain to raise its key interest rates to a five-and-a-half-year high to curb inflation in the 13-nation eurozone economy.
In late New York trading, the US dollar stood at 1.2209 Swiss francs from SF1.2250 on Thursday.
The pound was being traded at US$1.9819 after US$1.98.
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
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
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
EXPORT GROWTH: The AI boom has shortened chip cycles to just one year, putting pressure on chipmakers to accelerate development and expand packaging capacity Developing a localized supply chain for advanced packaging equipment is critical for keeping pace with customers’ increasingly shrinking time-to-market cycles for new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday. Spurred on by the AI revolution, customers are accelerating product upgrades to nearly every year, compared with the two to three-year development cadence in the past, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology and service Jun He (何軍) said at a 3D IC Global Summit organized by SEMI in Taipei. These shortened cycles put heavy pressure on chipmakers, as the entire process — from chip design to mass