India’s rupee and Indonesia’s rupiah led a third weekly advance in Asian currencies on speculation that political developments in the two nations will spur investment.
The rupee had the biggest weekly gain since September last year after results showed that the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies won or were leading in about 340 of 543 seats up for grabs — more than the 272 needed for a majority — while Rahul Gandhi, who led the ruling Indian National Congress party’s campaign, conceded defeat.
In Taipei, the New Taiwan dollar slipped 0.1 percent to NT$30.208 this week, compared with NT$30.175 on May 9.
On Friday, the greenback rose against the NT dollar, gaining NT$0.005 to close at NT$30.208 after moving in a narrow range on thin turnover, dealers said.
With the weekend approaching, many traders tended to stay on the sidelines, which kept the session quiet, the dealers said.
The central bank entered the market again to prop up the US dollar, helping the currency recoup earlier losses caused by the strength of other regional currencies and further foreign institutional buying in the local bourse, they added.
Traders were encouraged by gains posted by other regional currencies such as the Japanese yen and the South Korean won to pick up the NT dollar, the dealers said.
The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the region’s 10 most active currencies bar the yen, rose 0.29 percent from May 9 to 116.08 in Hong Kong.
In New Delhi, the rupee rose 2.1 percent this week to 58.78 per US dollar after touching an 11- month high of 58.62 on Friday, while the rupiah appreciated 1 percent to 11,415 this week in its biggest fiveday rally since March.
“Counting shows the BJP is poised for a majority win, which has boosted the rupee,” said Manis Thanawala, a director at Greenback Forex Services Pvt in Mumbai.
In Indonesia, presidential frontrunner and Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) won the largest share of votes in an April 9 parliamentary poll and formed a three-party coalition this week before the presidential election on July 9.
Former Indonesian vice president Jusuf Kalla from the Golkar party is among those being considered to be Widodo’s running mate, PDI-P official Puan Maharani said in Jakarta on Wednesday.
“It looks like if Golkar does formally join, there will be a four-party coalition that commands more than half of the parliamentary seats,”
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp economist Wellian Wiranto said.
“That’s obviously a majority that will help ease political bickering.” China’s yuan slipped 0.09 percent this week to 6.2334 per US dollar as data showed growth in industrial output and retail sales slowed last month, while Malaysia’s ringgit halted two weeks of appreciation — declining 0.2 percent from May 9 to 3.2335 — amid concern that slower expansion in China would hurt regional growth.
Elsewhere in Asia, Thailand’s baht snapped a three-week drop, rising 0.4 percent to 32.5 per US dollar, while the Philippine peso fell 0.2 percent to 43.760, South Korea’s won was little changed at 1,024.16 and Vietnam’s dong lost 0.3 percent to 21,165.
Also this week, the euro had its biggest two-week decline against the greenback since November last year as increased concern that the EU’s economy is struggling to accelerate sparked selloffs in bonds issued by Greece and Portugal.
The yen rallied the most versus the US dollar among the 16 major currencies as Japan’s economy grew at its fastest pace since 2011.
The euro fell 0.5 percent this week to US$1.3694 in New York, bringing the unit’s two-week decline to 1.3 percent. The common currency lost 0.8 percent to ¥139, as the yen rallied 0.4 percent to ¥101.50 and touched ¥101.32.
The euro is down 1.4 percent this year among 10 developed-nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes.
The yen has gained 3.1 percent and the US dollar declined 1 percent. In London, traders pushed back forecasts for when the Bank of England will raise interest rates, dropping the pound to its lowest level against the US dollar in a month.
The pushback came after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney on Wednesday said the bank is prepared to wait until next year to increase borrowing costs as there is still slack in the British economy. Sterling fell 0.1 percent from May 9 to US$1.6828 and gained 0.3 percent to £0.8145 per euro.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure