The euro dropped the most against the Swiss franc in almost two months and fell versus the yen as European leaders prepared for two summits over the next four days to battle the sovereign debt crisis.
The US dollar declined on Friday to a post-World War II low against the yen on speculation that the Federal Reserve may seek further monetary easing and bets the Japanese government will struggle to stem its currency’s gains. The Swiss franc rose this week against most of its major counterparts on demand for a refuge from Europe’s fiscal turmoil.
“I wouldn’t be holding my breath about the summit this weekend because the second summit coming next Wednesday means we probably won’t get anything concrete,” Eric Viloria, senior currency strategist at Gain Capital Group LLC in New York, said on Friday. “I would not be long on the euro, but I would not be surprised to see it rally with positive development from this meeting.”
A short is a bet an asset will drop.
The euro depreciated 1 percent to 1.2262 Swiss francs this week. It decreased 1.2 percent to ¥105.97 and traded at US$1.3896. The US dollar fell 1.2 percent to ¥76.29 after dropping on Friday to the post-World War II low of ¥75.82. It was the biggest weekly slide in the US currency since Aug. 12.
Implied volatility for the currencies of the G7 nations touched 13.3 percent this week, the highest level since Oct. 7, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co index.
Sterling rallied to a six-week high against the US dollar after Britain’s budget deficit narrowed last month more than economists forecast, as British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s spending cuts took hold.
The pound advanced 0.8 percent to US$1.5953 after rising on Friday to US$1.5974, the highest level since Sept. 9.
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
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
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],”
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