Asian currencies fell for a third week amid concern the yen’s slump will trigger a currency war, and after the European Central Bank (ECB) said the euro’s strength could hamper an economic recovery.
India’s rupee completed its worst week this year after the government predicted the slowest economic growth in a decade. The New Taiwan dollar slid to a five-month low and South Korea’s won pared a weekly gain after the yen’s plunge to the weakest level since May 2010 fueled speculation policymakers will rein in exchange rates to support exports.
The NT dollar dropped 0.3 percent to NT$29.75 against its US counterpart from a week ago, according to prices from Taipei Forex Inc. It retreated 0.4 percent on Friday and closed the weakest since Sept. 11. Local stock and bond markets were shut starting Thursday ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The rupee weakened 0.6 percent this week to 53.5050 per US dollar in Mumbai, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The baht was little changed at 29.79, after erasing a weekly gain. The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the region’s 10 most-active currencies excluding the yen, dropped 0.1 percent, a third weekly decline.
The won fell 0.7 percent on Friday, the most in a week, to 1,095.80 per US dollar. That pared its appreciation in the week to 0.1 percent. Foreign funds pulled 1.9 trillion won (US$1.7 billion) from its stock market last month, the most since May.
China’s yuan fell for a third week, losing 0.09 percent from Feb. 1, to 6.2325 per US dollar, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. It touched an eight-week low of 6.2417 earlier. Local financial markets close from tomorrow for a week-long Lunar New Year holiday.
Elsewhere, Malaysia’s ringgit rose 0.2 percent to 3.1005 per US dollar from Jan. 31, Indonesia’s rupiah gained 0.5 percent this week to 9,667 and the Philippine peso was up 0.1 percent at 40.677.
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