Commodity prices diverged this week as traders focused heavily on the outlook for the US and whether the world’s biggest economy would fall back into recession owing to a budget impasse.
Elsewhere, investors cautiously welcomed a bailout deal for Greece that eased fears over a bankruptcy for the indebted eurozone country.
OIL: Crude futures were narrowly mixed as traders mainly tracked the US budget talks.
Oil prices briefly soared last week as violence intensified in the Israel-Hamas conflict, stoking supply worries, but the market trimmed its gains in the wake of a ceasefire.
By Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) or light sweet crude for delivery in January edged up to US$87.85 a barrel from US$87.67 a week earlier.
On London’s Intercontinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for January eased to US$110.53 a barrel from US$110.83.
PRECIOUS METALS: Gold prices dropped after a sharp midweek loss.
Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital financial group, said he believed gold would “continue to lag behind other metals in the precious sector” owing to a lack of traders hedging against higher inflation.
By late Friday on the London Bullion Market, gold fell to US$1,726 an ounce from US$1,734.50 a week earlier.
Silver rose to US$34.28 an ounce from US$33.41.
On the London Platinum and Palladium Market, platinum rose to US$1,612 an ounce from US$1,584. Palladium climbed to US$685 an ounce from US$657.50.
BASE METALS: Prices of base, or industrial, metals rallied.
By late Friday on the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months jumped to US$7,933 a tonne from US$7,770 a week earlier.
Three-month aluminum was up at US$2,080 a tonne from US$1,965. Three-month lead grew to US$2,239 a tonne from US$2,202. Three-month tin increased to US$21,790 a tonne from US$20,800. Three-month nickel advanced to US$17,200 a tonne from US$16,678.
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