The euro declined the most since July versus the US dollar after European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi said a strong currency could slow the region’s economic recovery, lifting bets the bank may lower interest rates.
The yen declined against the greenback for the first time in 13 weeks as the Bank of Japan (BOJ) governor said he will step down early, accelerating a transition that may aid the prime minister’s plan for monetary easing. The BOJ will meet on Tuesday. The euro fell against all but two of its 16 most-traded peers this week as Italian and Spanish bonds slumped amid political turmoil.
“The euro correction is probably long overdue,” Greg Anderson, New York-based head of G10 currency strategy at Citigroup Inc, said on Friday in a telephone interview. “The market bought into the theme that the ECB is going to be the tightest of the G4 central banks because they won’t do anything while everyone else does quantitative easing. What Draghi did changed the psychology a bit.”
The US Federal Reserve, ECB, BOJ and Bank of England comprise the G4.
The euro declined 2 percent to US$1.3366 this week and touched US$1.3353 on Friday, its weakest level since Jan. 25. The loss was the euro’s biggest drop since the five days ended July 6. The shared currency fell 2.2 percent to ¥123.88. The yen depreciated 0.1 percent to ¥92.88 per US dollar after touching ¥94.06 on Feb. 6, its lowest level since May 5, 2010.
The euro, which touched a 14-month high of US$1.3711 on Feb. 1, has been the best performer this year among 10 developed-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes, gaining 2 percent. The yen weakened the most, 6.6 percent, and the US dollar increased 0.6 percent.
The British pound rose the most in two years this week versus the euro amid bets the Bank of England will refrain from extending its stimulus program in contrast to its European counterpart.
Sterling appreciated 2.7 percent to £0.8459 per euro this week, its biggest five-day drop since January 2011. The pound gained 0.7 percent to US$1.5796.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six