AUTOMAKERS
Rivals closing in on Tesla
Daimler AG, BMW AG and Volkswagen AG are closing in and might pass Tesla Inc in the electric automaking industry, based on a ranking that factors strategy, battery technology, culture, supplier networks, partnerships and financial performance into an overall score. Tesla should remain No. 1 next year, according to the forecast by PA Consulting Group, but by 2021, Tesla will fall to seventh place, it said. By then, Daimler would be in the lead, followed by BMW, the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi alliance and VW. Production issues with the Model 3 and an uncertain profit outlook were factors in the lower ranking for Tesla, PA Consulting said.
MACROECONOMICS
Singapore growth slows
Singapore’s economy expanded at a slower pace than forecast in the second quarter, clouding the outlook for the export-reliant city state at a time when global trade risks are rising. GDP rose at a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 1 percent from the prior three months, according to preliminary data from the Singaporean Ministry of Trade and Industry yesterday. The performance is weakest since a contraction in the first quarter of last year, data showed. GDP expanded 3.8 percent from a year earlier, compared with a median estimate of 4.1 percent, the ministry said.
MACROECONOMICS
Powell warns on tariffs
US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave an upbeat assessment of the US economy, but said that a sustained period of high tariffs on a wide variety of imports could be harmful to growth. “The economy’s in a really good place,” Powell said on Thursday in an interview on American Public Media’s Marketplace program, adding that unemployment was at its lowest level in 20 years, while acknowledging the risk posed by escalating trade disputes. Should those disputes result in “high tariffs on a lot of products and a lot of traded goods and services” that “could be a negative for our economy,” he said. Powell added that inflation has gradually moved up.
EUROZONE
Bulgaria closer to joining
Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest country, on Thursday moved a step closer to joining the euro. After a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels, the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) said an evaluation could be completed in about a year. “The European Commission welcomes Bulgaria’s efforts to join the eurozone,” European Commission Vice President for the Euro and Social Dialogue Valdis Dombrovskis said. “We might expect the ECB to complete its overall assessment in around a year,” members of the eurozone added in a statement.
FINANCE
Moryoussef guilty of rigging
Former Barclays PLC trader Philippe Moryoussef was in his native France when a London jury found him guilty of a conspiracy to rig an interest-rate benchmark that influences trillions of dollars of pensions and mortgages. He had left London days before the trial began in April. The jury took four days to find Moryoussef guilty, bringing seven years of investigations toward an end. He became the seventh person to be found guilty of interest-rate manipulation in the UK. Barclays was among banks that paid about US$9 billion in fines. Still, the UK Serious Fraud Office cannot be sure Moryoussef will ever end up in prison.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure