The US dollar on Friday fell broadly after posting gains the past three weeks as a solid, but not spectacular, US non-farm payrolls report stirred doubts about the path of rate increases next year.
However, analysts said the US dollar’s weakness was just a short-term correction, a much-needed one, after a strong rally in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election on Nov. 8.
The US dollar index posted its first weekly fall in four weeks against a currency basket, but was still up 1.7 percent for the year.
Non-farm payrolls increased 178,000 jobs last month, but data for September and October were revised to show that fewer jobs were created than previously reported. Wage growth for the month was just 2.5 percent, compared with expectations of 2.8 percent, unchanged from October.
“I think the market was a little less excited about wage growth this past release, but in general, my view on the [US] dollar has not changed. This is just some profit-taking, some squaring up of positions,” said Ron Waliczek, managing director of OTC FX and interest rates at INTL FCStone Inc in Chicago.
“I do think that the [US] dollar has another leg up, about 6-7 percent toward the 107, 108 level in the [US] dollar index,” he said.
In late trading on Friday, the US dollar index fell 0.3 percent to 100.77. It was down 0.7 percent for the week.
The US dollar fared slightly better against the yen. The US currency was flat at £113.990 after rising to a near 10-month high of £114.830 the previous day and was up 0.6 percent for the week.
In Taipei, the New Taiwan dollar on Friday fell against the greenback, dropping NT$0.031 to close at NT$31.923, as traders reacted to heavy selling of shares by foreign institutional investors, dealers said. The NT dollar is up 0.06 percent from last week’s NT$31.942 per US dollar.
The euro rose 0.7 percent on Friday night after Reuters reported the European Central Bank will extend its bond purchases beyond March and consider sending a formal signal next week that the asset purchase program will eventually end.
It last stood little changed at US$1.0659, up 0.8 percent for the week.
Sterling gained on a perceived crack in Britain’s “hard Brexit” line following comments from British Secretary of State for Exiting the EU David Davis.
On Friday, the pound was up a fraction at US$1.2596 after rising 0.7 percent the previous day when it touched a two-month high of US$1.2696.
Additional reporting by CNA, with staff writer
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained