Asian markets fell and the euro remained under pressure yesterday after Standard & Poor’s cut the rating of nine European nations, including France and Austria’s -“triple-A” status.
The news brought the eurozone debt crisis back to the forefront, with traders looking ahead to a crucial week in the region as Greece struggles to come to an agreement with creditors over its repayments, raising fears it could default.
Sydney lost 1.16 percent, or 49.9 points, to finish at 4,145.9, Tokyo fell 1.43 percent, or 121.66 points, to 8,378.36, while Seoul ended 0.88 percent lower, or 16.41 points, at 1,859.27.
Hong Kong shares closed 1 percent lower, while Chinese shares closed down 1.71 percent and Taipei lost 1.09 percent despite Beijing-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) being handed a second term in Saturday’s elections, a result that came as a relief to the US and China.
European shares slipped in opening deals yesterday, with Paris down 0.69 percent, after Standard & Poor’s cut the rating of nine European nations, including France and Austria’s “triple-A” status.
In early trade, London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index of leading shares dipped 0.25 percent to 5,622.44 points, the Paris CAC 40 shed 0.69 percent to 3,174.33 points and Frankfurt’s DAX 30 lost 0.37 percent to 6,120.40 points.
“The downgrades were widely anticipated and already priced [in],” Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said in a note.
“However, they set a nervous early tone for this week’s markets as we approach more significant hurdles in the evolution of the eurozone crisis,” Dow Jones Newswires quoted him as saying.
Eyes will now be on Greece this week as it holds talks with private banks over writing down part of its debt, which is considered vital to avoid a messy default.
Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said his country faced “acute economic dangers” without the writedown deal, which would wipe off 100 billion euros (US$127 billion) from Greece’s massive debt burden and help unlock further international bailout aid.
However, talks over the weekend stalled, raising the prospect that Greece could plunge out of the eurozone with dire results for the region and the global economy.
The euro plummeted more than US$0.02 on Friday after the S&P announcement, hitting US$1.2624 in New York late on Friday, its lowest since August 2010.
However, the single currency was “here to stay” as a global currency and the eurozone currency bloc would bounce back from its fiscal crisis, Michel Barnier, EU commissioner for the internal market, said yesterday.
“Let there be no mistake: This is not a crisis of the euro as a currency,” he told delegates to the Asian Financial Forum, a gathering of regional banking and finance chiefs in Hong Kong. “The euro is here to stay. In the last 10 years, the euro has proven itself as a true world currency ... And despite the difficulties, it remains strong.”
The single currency recovered slightly in Tokyo afternoon trade yesterday, trading at US$1.2646. It rose off its intra-day low against the Japanese unit to trade at ¥97.12, but remained below ¥97.20 in New York.
The US dollar was at ¥76.82, edging down from ¥76.83.
New York’s main oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery next month, gained US$0.30 cents US$99.03 per barrel, while Brent North Sea crude for delivery next month was up US$0.20 to US$111.01 on its last trading day.
Gold was at US$1,639.10 an ounce at 0655 GMT, against US$1,642.25 late on Friday.
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