Asian shares rose yesterday after US lawmakers passed a last-minute bill to reopen the government and raise the country’s borrowing limit, avoiding a devastating default that threatened to spark another global recession.
Investors breathed a sigh of relief as Republican and Democratic senators found a compromise budget after weeks of bitter rows on Capitol Hill that called into question Washington’s credibility with its creditors, including China and Japan.
Tokyo rose 0.83 percent, or 119.37 points, to close at 14,586.51, Seoul added 0.29 percent, or 6.00 points, to finish at 2,040.61, while Sydney climbed 0.38 percent, or 20.2 points, to end at 5,283.1.
Taipei gained 0.51 percent, or 42.50 points, to 8,374.68, but Hong Kong lost 0.57 percent, or 133.45 points to 23,094.88, while Shanghai closed down 0.21 percent, or 4.53 points, at 2,188.54 as dealers await the release today of China’s third-quarter economic growth data.
“Approval of the debt deal eliminates uncertainties, which is good for the market,” Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management chief fund manager Keisuke Shirasuka told reporters.
“However, as the market wasn’t factoring in a US default, shares weren’t oversold. Consequently, the approval will unlikely trigger major buy backs,” Shirasuka added.
Despite the upbeat news from Capitol Hill, Credit Agricole said: “We have a short-term extension but will likely be in a similar ‘crisis’ situation early next year... It’s hard to be optimistic on any easy solution in the negotiations that will take place over the next few months.”
On currency markets, the US dollar spiked against the yen in early trade, hitting ¥99.00 at one point, before falling in the afternoon.
The greenback bought ¥98.00 against ¥98.79 in New York on Wednesday, while the euro fetched US$1.3620 and ¥133.46 compared with US$1.3535 and ¥133.74.
In oil trade, New York’s main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery next month, was down US$0.55 to US$101.74 a barrel in afternoon trade, and Brent North Sea crude for December dipped US$0.48 to US$110.11.
Gold cost US$1,310.40 compared with US$1,282.80 on Wednesday.
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