JAPAN
Inflation up, but still wanting
Consumer prices rose last month, official data showed yesterday, but inflation was still way below the central bank’s target, as authorities struggle to slay deflation in the world’s third-biggest economy. After stripping out volatile prices for fresh food, inflation was 0.7 percent, the eighth straight month of price rises and in line with market expectations, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. Excluding fresh food and energy, prices edged up just 0.2 percent compared with a year earlier.
VIETNAM
Growth exceeds 7 percent
Growth accelerated in the third quarter to more than 7 percent, with the economy on track to remain among the world’s fastest. GDP rose 7.46 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, compared with a revised 6.28 percent in the previous three months, the General Statistics Office said yesterday. The economy expanded 6.41 percent in the nine months through this month, compared with the 6.1 percent that economists estimated.
UNITED STATES
Fastest growth in two years
The economy grew at an upgraded annual rate of 3.1 percent in the April-to-June quarter, the fastest pace in more than two years. However, growth is expected to slow sharply this quarter in the wake of a string of devastating hurricanes. The expansion in GDP is up slightly from a 3 percent estimate made last month, the Department of Commerce said on Thursday. It is the strongest performance since the economy grew at a 3.2 percent pace in the first quarter of 2015. The upward revision reflected larger farm stockpiles.
BANKING
Fitch downgrades Deutsche
Deutsche Bank AG had its long-term credit grade cut one level by Fitch Ratings as the lender struggles to through another strategic overhaul. The German bank’s grade was reduced to “BBB+” from “A-,” while its outlook was set at “stable,” Fitch said in a statement on Thursday. The lender will take “some time” to reach its earnings targets, the ratings company said. Deutsche Bank had its weakest quarterly revenue in three-and-a-half years in the second quarter, the lender said.
BROKERAGES
Haitong to add jobs in HK
Haitong International Securities Group Ltd (海通國際證券), a unit of China’s second-largest brokerage, plans to add about 100 jobs in Hong Kong as it seeks to draw more of the nation’s growing ranks of multimillionaires to its wealth management business. The firm said it is focused on strengthening its group of relationship managers specialized in ultra-high net worth clients with at least US$10 million. The new hires will take place over the next 12 months and boost the number of sales staff in private wealth management to 160, it added.
AUTOMAKERS
Investor rips into Tesla
Tesla Motors Inc, a perennial target of short sellers, is “structurally unprofitable” with a “way too leveraged” capital structure, famed investor Jim Chanos said on Thursday. Chanos, who bet early on energy company Enron Corp’s failure, said the electric car maker run by Elon Musk is behind on autonomous driving technology and rushed the Model 3 to market to appease investors. SolarCity Corp, the solar installer Tesla acquired in a controversial deal last year, is about a US$1 billion drain to shareholders annually, he said.
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],”