The euro fell by the most in 11 months against the yen as rising Spanish borrowing costs boosted concern the region’s sovereign-debt crisis in worsening.
The US dollar posted weekly gains against most of its major counterparts, as demand for safety increased. Higher-yielding currencies, led by South Africa’s rand, fell as a report showed US employers added the fewest jobs in five months last month, which fueled concern the US economic recovery was slowing and underscored bets the US Federal Reserve would introduce further stimulus.
The yen rose against all of its major peers ahead of a Bank of Japan meeting on Tuesday.
Photo: Reuters
“The rain has come from Spain,” said Alan Ruskin, global head of G10 foreign-exchange strategy at Deutsche Bank AG in New York. “The austerity policy is so harsh that it could undermine their own capacity to deliver better fiscal numbers. The Spain story is front and center” for the euro.
The 17-nation euro dropped 3.4 percent to ¥106.86 in New York, its biggest weekly loss since May last year. The shared currency fell 1.9 percent to US$1.3096, reaching US$1.3035 on Thursday, its lowest level since March 15. The US dollar weakened 1.5 percent to ¥81.64.
The rand and Sweden’s krona declined the most against the US dollar among the 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. South Africa’s currency slumped 2.7 percent to 7.8834 per US dollar, while the krona lost 2.1 percent to 6.7522.
The Swiss franc strengthened to SF1.19995 per euro on Thursday, breaking the Swiss National Bank-imposed ceiling of SF1.20 per euro. It appreciated 0.3 percent this week, rising for a third week, to SF1.2010 per euro. It lost 1.6 percent to SF0.9173 per US dollar.
The Swiss central bank set a limit of 1.20 francs per euro on Sept. 6 last year to protect exports after investors turned to the Swiss franc as a haven from Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis. The bank won’t allow the franc to rise above the ceiling and is ready to buy foreign currencies in unlimited quantities, spokesman Walter Meier said by telephone on Thursday.
The euro slid 1.1 percent this week, the second-worst performer after the krona among the 10 developed-nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes. The yen has gained 2.6 percent and the US dollar has appreciated 0.9 percent.
The Dollar Index, which Intercontinental Exchange Inc uses to track the greenback against the currencies of six US major trading partners, gained 1.1 percent to 79.839, halting three consecutive weeks of losses.
The pound gained for a second week versus the euro, rising to £0.8238 on Thursday, from £0.8327 on March 30. The British currency dropped 0.8 percent to US$1.5838.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained