The pound fell for a sixth week against the US dollar — its longest run in four years — as investors pushed back expectations for the timing of the Bank of England’s first interest rate increase since 2007.
Sterling depreciated for a third week versus the euro after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said policymakers will focus more on Britain’s ailing wage growth when deciding on interest rates.
Sterling dropped 0.5 percent this week to US$1.6687, after sliding to US$1.6658 on Thursday, the lowest since April 8. The unit’s six-week fall is the longest run of losses since June 2010. The pound weakened 0.4 percent to £0.8023 per euro, after touching £0.8036 on Thursday, its weakest since June 12.
Carney said growth “faces some challenges,” in remarks after central bank officials published their quarterly Inflation Report on Wednesday.
Average weekly earnings fell 0.2 percent in the three months through June, even as unemployment dropped to 6.4 percent, the British Office for National Statistics reported on Wednesday.
The US dollar dropped versus a basket of major peers for the first time in a month as concern the US economy is struggling to gain momentum boosted bets the US Federal Reserve will keep interest rates lower for longer.
The pound was the biggest loser among the 16 major currencies this week as investors pushed back their forecasts for the timing of rate increases.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the greenback against 10 developed market peers, fell 0.2 percent to 1,019.42 this week to end a four-week rally.
The US currency rose 0.3 percent to ¥102.36 on the week, as the euro fell 0.1 percent to US$1.3401 for a fifth week of losses, the longest slide since March last year. The yen fell 0.2 percent to ¥137.16 against the euro.
Amid a flareup in tensions with Russia, Ukraine’s hryvnia sank 4.6 percent to 13.1250 per US dollar this week, extending its drop this year to 37 percent, the most in the world after Ghana’s cedi.
The hryvnia was the worst performer among more than 150 currencies tracked by Bloomberg after Kiev said its troops destroyed “part” of a military convoy from Russia.
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