FINANCE
US should lead: Zoellick
The head of the World Bank said yesterday it was right for the US to take a leading role in some global institutions and that the right US candidate for the post of the bank’s next president would be good for the US and the bank. In an interview in Singapore, World Bank President Robert Zoellick also said he did not believe Spain, Italy or Portugal needed bailouts to ease massive debt burdens, but that reforms needed the critical support of Germany and other leading European nations. The World Bank last week launched the nomination process to select a new president to succeed Zoellick when he steps down in June, inviting names from any of its 187 member countries. Some nations say it is time for a non-US candidate to take the helm of the bank, pointing to the growing economic clout of the developing world.
INTERNET
Google sells Clearwire stake
Google Inc on Friday said it would sell its stake in Clearwire Corp, the struggling operator of a wireless data network. The search company is taking a 94 percent loss on the originally US$500 million investment made in 2008. Google said in a regulatory filing that it was seeking to sell its stake starting tomorrow for US$1.60 per share, or US$47 million total. Clearwire shares fell US$0.16, or 6.8 percent, to close on Friday at US$2.11. Google was part of a consortium that included cable companies and equipment provider Intel Corp that injected US$3.2 billion into Clearwire when it merged with a Sprint Nextel Corp unit in 2008. The hope was that Clearwire would be a powerful competitor to the established cellphone companies, providing fast wireless data at low prices.
UNITED STATES
Officials oppose QE3
Two US Federal Reserve officials opposed additional mortgage-bond purchases by the Fed, saying the measure was not needed and that the US central bank should not interfere in credit markets. Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis President James Bullard said he did not favor additional debt buying as inflation risks are “to the upside” and a damaged housing market limits the effectiveness of monetary policy. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said targeting a specific industry such as housing should be left to the US Treasury. “I am worried that if you try to push so hard on monetary policy even when the mechanism isn’t really working, the whole thing blows up on you,” said Bullard, who does not vote on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this year. He also said that the FOMC would need to mark down its economic forecasts to warrant another program of large-scale asset purchases, known as quantitative easing.
SPORTING GOODS
Nike selling Lin shoes
Nike Inc will start selling Jeremy Lin (林書豪)-themed shoes this weekend, cashing in on the New York Knicks point guard’s recent rise to worldwide fame. Priced at US$130, the shoes will be available on Nike’s Web site. Nike said it would launch the Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low basketball shoes, made especially for Lin, this weekend in Orlando, Florida, where the NBA is holding its All-Star festivities. “It’s not a signature line, but a version of the shoe that he’s been wearing this season,” the company said. The world’s biggest sporting goods company, headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, signed Lin in 2010, and launched its “Linsanity” line of clothes at Foot Locker Inc stores last week.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
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