The euro halted a two-year losing streak as European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi’s commitment to backstop the shared currency stymied a debt-contagion threat.
In its 13th year, the 17-nation currency rebounded versus the greenback after sliding almost 10 percent during the prior two years. The yen extended the largest loss versus the US dollar among major currencies as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe put pressure on the central bank to increase monetary stimulus. The US currency was little changed as US policymakers struggled with deficit control and the Federal Reserve extended its record-low interest rate target and bond-buying plans.
“The ECB has gone a long way to suppress the forces of the crisis and contain systemic risk,” said Lena Komileva, London-based chief economist at G+ Economics. “This is the primary reason the euro has been as strong as it has. Initially this year, the market underestimated the effectiveness of the ECB.’
The euro was up 2 percent for the year to US$1.3216 on Friday in New York, after dropping 3.2 percent last year and 6.5 percent in 2010. It remained below its life-time peak of US$1.6038 reached on July 15, 2008, traded as high as US$1.3487 on Feb. 24 and as low as US$1.2043 on July 24.
The yen is down 14 percent this year, posting the biggest depreciation among the 10 developed-nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes.
“The yen will weaken further given the election of Abe,” said John Taylor, chairman and founder of FX Concepts LLC, said in a telephone interview from his New York office on Dec. 20. “The yen weak versus the US dollar into the first week or so of February,” reaching ¥90 per US dollar before reversing course.
The median forecast of 50 strategists and economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict the yen will trade at ¥87 per US dollar at the end of next year.
The pound slipped 0.4 percent this week to £0.8183 per euro. It dropped to £0.8225 on Friday, the weakest level since April 18. It was little changed at US$1.6161. If sterling closes stronger than £0.8334 per euro tomorrow, this will be the fourth year of gains, the longest winning streak since the introduction of the single currency in 1999.
The pound has risen 1.5 percent this year, according to Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes.
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