New Taiwan dollar forwards slumped the most in almost six months after a Chinese-language newspaper reported that the central bank was investigating suspected irregular trading in the market by foreign banks.
One-month non-deliverable forwards shed 0.9 percent to NT$32.15, the most since April 7. The Chinese-language United Daily News said the central bank was looking into whether the banks engaged in speculative trades involving sales of US dollars in the forwards market that weren’t covered by anticipated US dollar earnings in the future.
The contract, which allows investors to bet on the value of the currency in one month, rallied 3.5 percent last month as foreign investors snapped up Taiwanese stocks and exports to China increased. Central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) told lawmakers this week he was prepared to step in to “maintain order” as inflows from abroad put pressure on the currency to appreciate.
“The central bank doesn’t want the Taiwan dollar to rise too fast,” said Michael Ding (丁予嘉), chairman and chief executive at Taipei-based brokerage Waterland Securities Co (國票證券). “The banks may unwind their short US dollar positions, just to show their cooperation.”
A short position is a bet that an asset will decline. Forwards are agreements to buy and sell assets at current prices for delivery at a specified time and date.
Non-deliverable contracts are conducted offshore and are settled in dollars. That leaves the central bank with limited ability to control such trades, Ding said.
The spot rate for the NT dollar gained as much as 0.3 percent, before reversing its advance on speculation that the central bank was intervening to curb appreciation. The NT dollar fell 0.1 percent to NT$32.35 per US dollar as of 4pm in Taipei. It reached NT$31.995 on Thursday, the strongest level since Oct. 1 last year.
“There’s hot money coming in in anticipation of further appreciation of the Taiwan dollar,” said Henry Lin, a currency trader at Shin Kong Commercial Bank (新光銀行). “The money is more or less being used to buy stocks.”
The central bank bought US dollars yesterday to slow the local currency’s rise, though it wasn’t as active as on Thursday, said three traders, asking not to be identified. Policymakers intervened on Thursday to drive the NT dollar down 0.4 percent, traders said.
The monetary authority said on Wednesday that it would “step in to maintain order” if excessive volatility is caused by “seasonal or irregular factors.”
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six