Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the world's largest securities firm by market value, raised its three-month forecasts on six Asian currencies as signs of accelerating inflation and growth change the policies of central banks.
"There is evidence that foreign-exchange intervention strategies are changing across the region," Goldman analysts Fiona Lake, Jens Nordvig and Thomas Stolper wrote in a note on Thursday.
"In an environment of rising inflation risk, a stronger currency may be a very powerful policy tool," they wrote.
India's rupee will climb to 39.50 against the US dollar, up from a previous forecast of 41.30. The Malaysian ringgit will rise to 3.33, up from the prior prediction of 3.41. The Philippine peso will advance to 43.50 from a projection of 45.50.
Singapore's dollar will gain to S$1.45 compared with the old forecast of S$1.51 and the New Taiwan dollar will strengthen to NT$32.00 from a prior estimate of NT$32.50. The Thai baht will appreciate to 32.00 from 35.00.
Inflation quickened to a two-year high of 3.08 percent in Taiwan last month and a 12-year high of 2.9 percent in Singapore.
The Philippine economy expanded 7.5 percent in the three months to June 30, the fastest pace in two decades.
India's economic growth accelerated to 9.3 percent in the second quarter, the most in almost a year.
Morgan Stanley & Co, the second-biggest US securities firm, also raised its forecasts on six Asian currencies as inflation and surging investments place pressure on central banks to let exchange rates appreciate.
Morgan Stanley raised forecasts for the yuan, the Korean won, the ringgit, the baht and the Singapore and NT dollars.
Fourteen of 17 currencies of Asia's largest economies appreciated against the US dollar in the past year, with India's rupee having the third-best performance at 16 percent, behind the Australian and New Zealand dollars.
"We have seen evidence of bigger foreign-exchange moves in a number of Asian countries," the Goldman analysts wrote. "The relatively moderate increases in reserves in Korea, Singapore and Taiwan in recent months point to a less aggressive intervention stance."
South Korea's foreign-exchange reserves rose 0.8 percent to US$257.3 billion last month from August, according to the Bank of Korea.
Goldman estimated the total intervention by the Bank of Korea, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Taiwan's central bank and compared that estimate with the average monthly appreciation in the won and in the Singapore and NT dollars.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Nvidia Corp’s GB300 platform is expected to account for 70 to 80 percent of global artificial intelligence (AI) server rack shipments this year, while adoption of its next-generation Vera Rubin 200 platform is to gradually gain momentum after the third quarter of the year, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said. Servers based on Nvidia’s GB300 chips entered mass production last quarter and they are expected to become the mainstay models for Taiwanese server manufacturers this year, Trendforce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) said in an interview. This year is expected to be a breakout year for AI servers based on a variety of chips, as
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
RSS