The euro rose against the yen and US dollar as global equities erased losses and European Central Bank governing council members said the bank may step up efforts to ease market tensions.
“People are a little fatigued on policy makers, which is unfortunate because they hold a large portion of control over market sentiment,” said Brian Kim, a currency strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC’s RBS Securities unit in Stamford, Connecticut.
“The euro is bouncing and chopping around as stocks move up and down with risk sentiment, he said.
The euro rose 0.7 percent to ¥103.40 at 5pm in New York on Friday. The shared currency gained 0.3 percent to US$1.35, after falling as much as 0.3 percent.
The pound fell for a fifth consecutive week against the US dollar, its longest losing streak in more than a year, amid speculation that the Bank of England will respond to slowing global economic growth.
The British currency fell to an all-time low versus the yen. The IMF this week cut its UK economic growth forecasts for this year and next year to 1.1 percent and 1.6 percent.
The Washington-based IMF previously projected expansion of 1.5 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.
The pound weakened 2.1 percent this week to US$1.5458 at 4:51pm in London on Friday. That’s its steepest weekly drop since November 2010.
The UK currency depreciated 2.7 percent to ¥117.9, after falling to a record low ¥116.84 on Thursday. Sterling was little changed versus the euro at £0.874, from £0.874 on Sept. 16.
The pound has gained 1.1 percent in the last three months, paring a 12-month decline to 4.4 percent, the worst performer among 10 developed-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Currency Indexes.
The Swiss franc fell 1.1 percent to SF1.22199 per euro, from SF1.20861. It declined 3.4 percent to SF0.905 per US dollar from SF0.875.
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
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],”