The euro rose this week for the first time in seven weeks after bets that the 17-nation currency would weaken reached a record and as member nations’ borrowing costs fell at bond auctions, mitigating debt-crisis pessimism.
“The development with European borrowing costs, how they continued their descent, that took some pressure off the single currency,” said Joe Manimbo, a market analyst in Washington at Travelex Global Business Payments, a currency-exchange network. “Talk that the IMF is considering a bigger lending facility to help protect the global economy helped fan risk appetite.”
The euro rose 2 percent to US$1.2931, the biggest weekly gain since Oct. 14. It reached US$1.2986 on Friday, the highest level since Jan. 4. The common currency appreciated 2.1 percent to ¥99.62, after reaching an 11-year low of ¥97.04 Jan. 16. The US dollar was little changed against the yen at ¥77.01.
The Dollar Index, which IntercontinentalExchange Inc uses to track the greenback against the currencies of six major US trading partners, fell 1.6 percent to 80.157. It touched 79.999, its lowest level since Jan. 4.
Sweden’s krona added 3 percent to 6.7826 per US dollar.
The pound posted its biggest weekly decline against the euro in almost three months.
The pound weakened 0.5 percent to £0.8321 per euro on Friday, the biggest weekly drop since Oct. 28. It gained 1.5 percent to ¥119.60 on Friday, snapping a three-week slide. It gained 1.4 percent against the greenback to US$1.5538.
The Swiss franc fell against the US dollar, weakening 0.4 percent to SF0.9357 at 9:43am London time on Friday.
The currency gained 0.1 percent to 1.2077 per euro.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in