The euro fell the most in two months versus the US dollar as Greek political wrangling threatened to unravel a plan to stem Europe’s debt crisis and global leaders balked at writing new checks to bail out the region.
The 17-nation currency touched a three-week low versus the greenback as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou called for, and then called off, a referendum on a bailout needed to prevent a default. The US dollar rose against all of its 16 most-traded peers as investors sought safety and Japan moved to stop the yen’s advance.
“Greece remains the focus,” said Andrew Cox, a currency strategist at Citigroup Inc in New York. “The event that rocked the markets pretty hard was news that Papandreou was calling the confidence vote and referendum. It hit an already fragile market and was the defining event of the week.”
The euro depreciated 2.5 percent to US$1.3792 in its first weekly loss since the five days ended Oct. 7. The drop was the biggest since the currency fell 3.9 percent in the week ended Sept. 9. The currency touched US$1.3609 on Tuesday, the weakest level since Oct. 12. The yen declined 0.6 percent to 107.88 per euro. The dollar strengthened 3.2 percent to ¥78.24, its biggest weekly gain since April, after touching ¥75.35 on Oct. 31, the lowest level since World War II.
The Dollar Index, which IntercontinentalExchange Inc uses to track the greenback against the currencies of six major trade partners including the euro and yen, rose 2.4 percent to 76.911.
Meanwhile, the British pound had its biggest weekly gain since January against the euro as European leaders struggled to contain the region’s debt crisis and keep Greece inside the monetary union, boosting demand for UK assets.
The pound gained 2.2 percent this week to £0.8583 per euro at 4:35pm on Friday in London. That’s the biggest increase since the five days though Jan. 7, when it strengthened by 3.2 percent. It also gained 2.2 percent to 1.4234 Swiss francs, but weakened 0.7 percent to US$1.6024.
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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day