The US dollar rose against a basket of other currencies on Friday, as US job growth surged last month, but investor concerns about a possible escalation of the US-Chinese trade conflict held gains in check.
Non-farm payrolls surged by 201,000 jobs last month, the US Department of Labor said on Friday.
Average hourly earnings increased 0.4 percent last month, resulting in an annual increase 2.9 percent, the largest since June 2009.
Strengthening wage growth underscores tight labor market conditions and cements the likelihood of a third interest rate increase from the US Federal Reserve this year when policymakers meet on Sept. 25-26.
“This is a solid report. It reinforced the view that the Fed will raise rates at the next meeting,” Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
US benchmark Treasury yields rose to their highest in almost a month and the US dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, rose 0.33 percent to 95.33, up 0.2 percent for the week.
In Taipei, the New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar, gaining NT$0.026 to close at NT$30.776, down 0.14 percent from last week’s NT$30.731.
“Today we are seeing the knee-jerk reaction as far as the dollar to just move on rate differentials and the bond market move,” said Steven Englander, global head of G10 FX research at Standard Chartered Bank in New York.
The public comment period for proposed US tariffs on an additional US$200 billion worth of Chinese imports ended on Thursday and investors await the firing of a fresh salvo in the ongoing US-Chinese trade war.
“In some ways, it might have been easier for the market if it [US tariffs] had just been announced last night,” said Greg Anderson, global head of foreign exchange strategy at BMO Capital Markets in New York.
“It’s there as little bit of a bogey for the market,” he said.
The Australian dollar skidded to near a two-and-a-half-year low following weak home loan data and as trade-related tensions continued to pressure commodity-linked currencies.
The New Zealand dollar slipped to trade just above a recent two-and-a-half-year year low of US$0.6530.
Sterling jumped to a one-week high against the US dollar on news the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, told British lawmakers earlier this month that he wanted to discuss with the UK how to solve the Irish border issue, but that both sides were under great time pressure.
However, the sterling later fell to end the week with a 0.3 loss against the US dollar.
Additional reporting by CNA, with staff writer
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last