The won yesterday halted a seven-day rally as foreign funds pulled money from South Korean shares for the first time in two weeks.
The KOSPI fell the most in more than three weeks as Japan led a retreat in Asian equities. An export slump in China, South Korea’s biggest overseas market, deepened last month, an official report showed yesterday.
Eleven of 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the Bank of Korea to leave its policy rate at 1.5 percent on Thursday, with the rest projecting a cut to 1.25 percent.
“There’s concern that monetary policy will actually be something more dovish,” Mizuho Bank Ltd Singapore-based economist Vishnu Varathan said. “There’s still an overarching concern that the more export-focused economies in the region will continue to feel some of the headwinds.”
The won weakened 0.4 percent to 1,206.70 per US dollar in Seoul, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The currency strengthened 3.1 percent in the seven days through Monday, its longest winning run since December 2013. It is still the worst performer among Asian emerging markets this year, declining 2.8 percent. The KOSPI fell 0.6 percent, the most since Feb. 12.
Market instability in China, Japan and oil-producing nations is hurting exports and the government will take steps to boost jobs for youth and women, South Korean Minister of Finance Yoo Il-ho said on Monday.
A slowdown in global trade is making it harder for Chinese leaders, who are gathered in Beijing this week to set the nation’s economic plans, to keep growth at the targeted 6.5 percent to 7 percent range. China’s stocks yesterday fell for the first time in six days.
Three-year government bonds rose, pushing the yield down two basis points to 1.49 percent, Korea Exchange prices show. The 10-year yield dropped three basis points to 1.85 percent.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”