Commodity prices mostly slid this week on worsening economic sentiment caused by political deadlock in indebted eurozone nation Italy and as the US braces for US$85 billion in budget cuts.
OIL: World crude prices reached multiweek low points as traders sought safety amid political turmoil in Italy, mixed economic data out of the US and China, and as dealers eyed huge US spending cuts that were due to kick in on Friday.
New York crude oil on Friday sank to US$90.29 a barrel — the lowest level since the end of last year.
At the same time, Brent North Sea crude reached a six-week low at US$109.82.
By Friday on London’s Intercontinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in April slid to US$110.35 a barrel from US$114.19 a week earlier.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) or light sweet crude for April dropped to US$90.60 a barrel compared with US$93.02.
PRECIOUS METALS: The price of gold recovered from seven-month lows of under US$1,600 an ounce struck the previous week after US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed’s stimulus program would continue.
Gold is seen as a good hedge against inflation, while stimulating the economy with new cash can push up inflation and weaken the dollar, according to experts..
By late Friday on the London Bullion Market, the price of gold edged up to US$1,582.25 an ounce from US$1,576.50 a week earlier.
Silver dropped to US$28.01 an ounce from US$28.79.
On the London Platinum and Palladium Market, platinum fell to US$1,579 an ounce from US$1,611.
Palladium slipped to US$721 an ounce from US$732.
BASE METALS: Base metal prices mostly dropped, gaining “little support from mostly positive US data and reassurance from Bernanke” on stimulus, BNP Paribas analyst Stephen Briggs said.
By late Friday on the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months slid to US$7,722 a tonne from US$7,808 a week earlier.
Three-month aluminum dropped to US$1,964 a tonne from US$2,049.
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