The New Taiwan dollar on Friday fell against the US Dollar, losing NT$0.0.31 to close at NT$29.231
Turnover totaled US$1.14 billion during the trading session.
The NT dollar opened at NT$29.200, moving between NT$29.070 and NT$29.235 before the close.
Elsewhere on Friday, the US dollar rose against most currencies, bolstered by solid US economic data that further supported consensus expectations that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at next week’s monetary policy meeting.
“The gains in the [US] dollar were a positive reaction to the data,” Commonwealth Foreign Exchange Inc chief market analyst Omer Esiner said in Washington. “The reports show that the dollar’s fundamental backdrop remains strong.”
US industrial production last month surged, boosted by strong increases in output at factories and mines, while a consumer sentiment survey by the University of Michigan showed a rise in the overall index for this month.
“A rate hike of 25 basis points on Wednesday [next week] is almost a foregone conclusion,” Forex.com head of research James Chen said in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Given the high expectations for a 25 basis-point rate hike, investors will be focused be on the Fed’s outlook for further hikes this year and beyond, he added.
However, the US dollar fell to a more than one-week low against the yen, undermined by speculation that more top officials in the administration of US President Donald Trump could be replaced and concerns US trade tariffs could hurt the global economy.
These US-centric factors have rattled markets over the past few days, pushing the US dollar lower and leaving the yen as the main beneficiary.
The Washington Post on Thursday reported that Trump has decided to replace US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.
At the same time, the New York Times reported that US Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller had issued a subpoena for documents related to Trump’s businesses, including some concerning Russia.
Earlier this week, the US dollar took a hit after Trump dismissed US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as investors grew increasingly nervous about the direction US policy might take following a series of departures by key staff members.
The US dollar fell from ¥106.24 to ¥106.10 after falling as low as ¥105.61, the lowest since Wednesday last week.
The US dollar index was up 0.1 percent at 90.223.
It has been on the defensive for much of the week amid the shake-up inside Trump’s administration and as next week’s Fed policy meeting comes into focus.
The euro fell 0.2 percent to US$1.2284, with little to drive the single currency higher.
It has struggled to make much headway since rallying in January and faced further headwinds after the European Central Bank last week cautioned investors not to expect a paring back of monetary stimulus any time soon.
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