The Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) surprise interest cut on Friday sent the yen tumbling against other major currencies.
However, the US dollar surprisingly gained when a worse-than-expected US report on economic growth in the fourth quarter weakened the argument for the US Federal Reserve hiking interest rates again at its next meeting in March.
The yen lost about 2 percent on the greenback, to ¥121.12, and about 1 percent on the euro, to ¥131.19, after the BOJ cut its short-term rate paid for bank deposits into negative territory.
Photo: Reuters
US fourth-quarter GDP growth came in at a lower-than-expected 0.7 percent, after a 2 percent pace in the third quarter, signaling possibly another winter slump.
The euro fell slightly on Friday, to US$1.0831, from US$1.0941 on Thursday.
The US dollar rose against the New Taiwan dollar yesterday, gaining NT$0.050 to close at NT$33.650 after moving in a narrow range on thin trading, dealers said.
The US dollar ended the previous week at NT$33.705
The low turnover resulted in part from the absence of many foreign traders during the rare Saturday session, held to make up for the loss of a work day during the extended Lunar New Year holiday that starts on Saturday, they said.
Taiwan’s central bank intervened to prop up the US dollar and help the greenback recoup earlier losses and close above the previous day’s closing level, dealers said.
The greenback opened at NT$33.560, and moved between NT$33.350 and NT$33.670 before the close. Turnover totaled US$275 million during the trading session.
The US dollar opened lower against the NT dollar on follow-through selling from a session earlier, and the downward momentum continued as local exporters sustained their selling of the greenback in exchange for NT dollars to meet seasonal fund demand, dealers said.
Foreign institutional investors’ net purchase of NT$2.57 billion (US$76.37 million) in shares on Taiwan’s stock market yesterday also put downward pressure on the US dollar.
Sluggish demand for the greenback was somewhat offset by the US dollar’s technical rebound in international markets and intervention by the central bank late in the session to protect the nation’s export competitiveness vaulted the US dollar back into positive territory at the close, dealers said.
The low turnover made it relatively easy for the central bank to drive down the value of the NT dollar, they said.
The baht climbed 0.4 percent on Friday to 35.713 per US dollar in Bangkok and earlier reached 35.670, the highest level since Nov. 26 last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The ringgit strengthened 1.3 percent to 4.1537 per US dollar in Kuala Lumpur and was up 3.5 percent from Friday last week, prices from local banks compiled by Bloomberg show. It reached 4.1195 on Friday, the highest level since October last year.
The British pound fell slightly on Friday to US$1.4244, from US$1.4359 on Thursday.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts