ECONOMY
US growth beats forecast
The US economy grew even faster in the third quarter than initially thought, posting the strongest six months of growth in more than a decade and pulling further ahead of other top world economies. GDP expanded at a healthy 3.9 percent annual rate in the quarter, the US Department of Commerce said on Tuesday. That is a notable jump from its first estimate of 3.5 percent. Together with a 4.6 percent surge in the spring, the nation has recorded its biggest back-to-back quarterly performance since 2003.
BANKING
US earnings rise 7.3%
US bank earnings rose 7.3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, as banks reduced their expenses and continued to lend more money, which helped drive up revenue. The data issued on Tuesday by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp showed that the US banking industry continues to recover from the financial crisis that struck six years ago. Banks and other financial institutions insured by the corporation earned US$38.7 billion in the third quarter, up from US$36.1 billion a year ago.
TRADING
TSE balks at evening trades
The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has indefinitely shelved plans to hold a two-hour evening session, which was being considered as a way for the bourse to better compete with rivals in Europe and the US. Tokyo’s bourse is open for a total of five hours per day, with a one-hour midday break — less than the six-and-a-half hours on Wall Street and also trailing London and Singapore. An exchange spokeswoman said some opponents worried about how fairly shares would be priced, given the expected weak trading volume in the evening.
SECURITIES
HSBC settles secrecy case
An HSBC unit has agreed to pay US$12.5 million to settle charges that its Swiss private-banking business violated US securities laws. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Tuesday that the private-banking unit failed to register with it before providing brokerage services and investment advice to US clients, allowing it to avoid regulatory scrutiny. The commission says HSBC Private Bank began doing so more than 10 years ago and collected fees totaling about US$5.7 million.
TECHNOLOGY
Spotify revenue increases
The world’s biggest music streaming service, Spotify, on Tuesday said its revenue grew by 74 percent last year, while net losses shrank by a third in a year of spectacular expansion. Revenue reached 746.9 million euros (US$931 million), 91 percent of which came from premium members — paying users — and 9 percent from advertising, Spotify Technology said in a statement. Net losses amounted to 57.8 million euros last year, compared with 86.7 million euros in 2012.
CURRENCY
Naira hits record low
Nigeria devalued its currency on Tuesday, seeking to stabilize the naira after it hit historic lows against the US dollar, as falling world oil prices hurt foreign reserves. The naira’s street value had already fallen before the surprise moves announced by Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele. It had been trading at nearly 180 naira to the US dollar, despite the official band of between 150 and 160 naira, and the central bank vowed to continue defending the currency against market pressures.
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