TURKEY
Lira falls against greenback
The lira fell amid worries that policymakers are not acting fast enough to put a lid on inflation. The US dollar gained as much 2.7 percent against the lira to US$6.7134, ahead of data expected to show consumer prices last month surging 17.6 percent from a year earlier. The central bank, which is to set rates on Thursday next week, has an official inflation target of 5 percent. While policymakers have raised borrowing costs by 700 basis points, that has not been enough to shield the lira from a currency rout that seen it shed more than 40 percent of its value against the US dollar this year.
MANUFACTURING
Unsold goods pile up
Companies in the eurozone are starting to see unsold goods pile up on factory floors after renewed concerns over trade prospects throttled order growth to its slowest pace in two years. A Euro-area purchasing managers’ index for manufacturing last month dropped to 54.6 from 55.1 in July, IHS Markit said on Monday. The report came amid threats by US President Donald Trump to tear up an agreement with the EU to work toward a new trade order without escalating protectionism. “The business mood has become more unsettled during the summer,” IHS Markit chief business economist Chris Williamson said. Risks of new tariffs are hurting sentiment, and “the expansion is looking increasingly uneven.”
PAYMENT SERVICES
Policymaker calls for cards
European Central Bank policymaker Yves Mersch called on Europe to develop its own global card payment services to compete with international peers and as a defense against any further escalation in geopolitical tension. Noting the dominance of California-based PayPal for online payments, as well as the services offered by Alphabet, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, Mersch said that European providers, such as Germany’s Girocard and France’s Cartes Bancaire, are too nationally focused. European banks seemed to have “surrendered” much of the business, with the strong regulatory framework in the EU “exploited” by multinationals, Mersch said.
BEVERAGES
Brewer gets ‘cheapest name’
Thai Beverage PLC has earned the title of the world’s “cheapest alcohol name” at Goldman Sachs, as the Bangkok-based brewer is now the worst performer in its consumer stocks coverage. Still, analysts say a turnaround in its operations next year will give the stock a nice lift. Since losing S$7.3 billion (US$5.3 billion) this year, ThaiBev now trades at 14.9 times of future earnings — below its 10-year average — while the MSCI World Beverages Index trades at 20.1 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
INDONESIA
Rupiah may hit 15,000
Analysts say the rupiah, the currency of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, is set to breach the level of 15,000 per US dollar for the first time since the depths of the Asian financial crisis in 1998. The rupiah yesterday slid as low as 14,782 as the nation’s trade deficit and reliance on oil imports render it vulnerable to the emerging-market selloff triggered by financial turmoil in Turkey and Argentina. “Fifteen thousand is the next psychological level the rupiah may breach,” said Nick Twidale, chief operating officer at Rakuten Securities in Sydney. The rupiah has tumbled more than 6 percent in the past three months.
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],”