The nation’s broad money supply measure, M2, expanded at a slower pace than its narrow gauge, M1B, last month as people trimmed time deposits in favor of financial products, the central bank said yesterday, citing the latest statistics.
The broader M2 monetary aggregate increased 3.29 percent last month from a year earlier, slowing from a 3.96 percent pickup in September, as mutual funds, insurance policies and other financial products became slightly more popular with the public, Chen E-dawn (陳一端), deputy head of the central bank’s economic research department, said at a press conference.
The M2 monetary supply figures captures the latest movements of time deposits, foreign currency deposits and mutual funds, as well as cash and cash equivalents, or M1B, the central bank’s monthly report showed.
The M1B reading grew 3.57 percent last month from its level a year ago, faster than September’s 3.35 percent gain, as the public’s risk appetite improved somewhat from the same period last year, when European debt problems worsened, Chen said.
Local stock analysts paid close attention to the narrow money supply figures, which they believe mirror the local bourse’s liquidity.
However, Chen refused to comment on whether the latest M1B and M2 readings lend support to a bullish stock market after forming “the golden cross” last month.
“All I can say is there is sufficient money supply in circulation for business activity,” Chen said.
The TAIEX closed up 1.11 percent yesterday with a healthy turnover of more than NT$80 billion (US$2.75 billion) after a 3.1 percent rebound on Friday, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
The main index shed 2.3 percent last month, while securities savings accounts lost NT$84.1 billion, the central bank said, adding that trading volume fell to an average of NT$63 billion a day, compared with NT$85.3 billion a day in September.
“The local bourse has fared better this month judging from its recent showing, but it is hard to tell what will happen in the future,” Chen said.
In related news, the central bank yesterday sold NT$30 billion 273-day Treasury bills at a yield of 0.650 percent, lower than the 0.77 percent yield recorded in the sale of the same maturity debt in July and marking the lowest figure in two years.
The central bank, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Finance to auction the bills, said that the sale of 273-day Treasury bills maturing on Aug. 27 next year was 2.51 times oversubscribed.
The banking sector was the winning bidder for the bills, as buyers from the sector snapped up all the bills sold yesterday.
Additional reporting by Kevin Chen
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by