The US dollar traded mixed on Friday, getting some help from recent declines in oil prices, but trading remained hesitant ahead of a meeting of finance chiefs of the Group of Seven nations.
The euro eased to US$1.2664 at 2100 from US$1.2722 dollars late in New York on Thursday. At one point the euro fell to US$1.2628 dollars, its lowest since July 26.
The dollar stood at ?117.42, from ?117.64 late on Thursday.
Movements were limited on Friday by caution ahead of a weekend meeting of the G7 countries.
Markets will be on the lookout for any statement by world leaders at the meeting relating to the weakness of the Japanese yen or urging greater flexibility for the Chinese yuan.
"Unless the ministers produce an aggressive communique calling for meaningful rebalancing of Asian currency exchange rates -- a scenario that almost no market player believes will occur -- the yen will continue to flounder," said Boris Schlossberg, senior currency analyst at Forex Capital Markets.
Ian Gunner at Mellon Financial said there was concern about the Japanese economy, which could mean a softer yen.
"The Japanese government's monthly report offered mixed messages about the state of the economy," he said. "They maintained the view that the economy was recovering, but downgraded consumer spending after recent weakness. However, they said it was too early to determine whether this was temporary [due to weather] or the beginning of a trend. On prices, they dropped the word `deflation' for the first time in five years but stopped short of formally declaring an end to deflation risk."
The US dollar showed little reaction to an inflation report largely in line with forecasts.
The US Labor Dept revealed that consumer prices rose 0.2 percent last month, perfectly in line with analysts' expectations. The core rate excluding food an energy was also up 0.2 percent.
The data was consistent with predictions of cooling economic growth and inflation that may allow the US Federal Reserve to remain on the sidelines. The US central bank paused last month after 17 quarter-point rate hikes, saying any further action would depend on incoming data.
"The US is not out of the woods yet as far as inflation is concerned, despite the more moderate increases in both headline and core consumer prices in August," said Paul Ashworth at Capital Economics said.
The data all but confirmed that the Federal Reserve will leave interest rates unchanged next week, at 5.25 percent for the second time in a row.
The Fed paused from hiking rates last month, ending its run of 17 straight rate hikes going back to mid-2004.
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it plans to double investment in data center-related technologies, including advanced packaging and high-speed interconnect technologies, to broaden the new business’ customer and service portfolios. The chip designer is redirecting its resources to data centers, mainly designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for cloud service providers. The data center business is forecast to lead growth in the next three years and become the company’s second-biggest revenue source, replacing chips used in smart devices, MediaTek president Joe Chen (陳冠州) told a media event in Taipei. “Three or four years
CHIP HANG-UP: Surging memorychip prices would deal a blow to smartphone sales this year, potentially hindering one of MediaTek’s biggest sources of revenue MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip designer, yesterday said its new artificial intelligence (AI) chips used in data centers are to account for 20 percent of its total revenue next year, as cloud service providers race to deploy AI infrastructure to meet voracious demand. MediaTek is believed to be developing tensor processing units for Google, which are used in AI applications. While it did not confirm such reports, MediaTek said its new application-specific IC (ASIC) business would be a new growth engine for the company. It again hiked its forecast for the addressable ASIC market to US$70 billion by 2028, compared
Until US President Donald Trump’s return a year ago, when the EU talked about cutting economic dependency on foreign powers — it was understood to mean China, but now Brussels has US tech in its sights. As Trump ramps up his threats — from strong-arming Europe on trade to pushing to seize Greenland — concern has grown that the unpredictable leader could, should he so wish, plunge the bloc into digital darkness. Since Trump’s Greenland climbdown, top officials have stepped up warnings that the EU is dangerously exposed to geopolitical shocks and must work toward strategic independence — in defense, energy and
Motorists ride past a mural along a street in Varanasi, India, yesterday.
RSS