The euro fell for a fourth week, its longest streak of losses since September, as declining consumer prices backed the case for further monetary stimulus from the European Central Bank (ECB).
The US dollar pared a fourth week of gains as traders weighed a US jobs report showing wages declined last month. Speculators boosted wagers on the US dollar versus eight of its major peers to a record high before the US releases consumer price data on Jan. 16.
The euro touched a nine-year low versus the greenback and slid to its weakest since October against the yen as an official said ECB policymakers met to discuss government-bond purchases under the quantitative-easing (QE) strategy. Russia’s ruble tumbled as oil fell below US$50 a barrel.
“The expectations of QE have been building and were reinforced by the comments this week and the CPI data,” said Vassili Serebriakov, a New York-based foreign-exchange strategist at BNP Paribas SA. “We might not get a much weaker euro immediately after the announcement, but, overall, if QE continues, the euro should be a key funding currency and will weaken over time.”
The 19-nation shared currency declined 1.3 percent to US$1.1842 this week in New York, after reaching US$1.1754 on Thursday.
The euro slipped a second week against the yen, losing 3 percent to ￥140.32 and touching ￥140.19. The Japanese currency rose for the first time in four weeks versus the US dollar, adding 1.7 percent to ￥118.50.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the US currency against 10 major peers, was little changed for the week at 1,141.13. It closed at 1,147.54 on Thursday, the highest in data going back to 2004.
Brazil’s real rose the most of the US dollar’s 31 major peers this week, after a four-day streak of gains. The currency rose 2.3 percent, the most since November.
The ruble led currencies lower, sliding 5.3 percent, as the oil selloff continued. Brent crude, the benchmark for more than half of the world’s oil, declined to US$48.90 a barrel on Thursday, the least since April 2009.
The Czech Republic’s koruna fell the most in 14 months as growing deflation risk fueled speculation the nation’s central bank will try to weaken the currency. It dropped 3 percent.
The pound dropped to its weakest level in 17 months against the US dollar as economic data added weight to speculation that the UK recovery is too frail for the Bank of England to raise interest rates this year.
Sterling, in its fourth week losing ground versus the US currency, depreciated against most of its 16 major peers in the past five days as reports showed manufacturing and services growth slowed last month and construction output rose less than economists forecast.
Central bank policymakers meeting in London kept the benchmark rate at a record-low 0.5 percent on Thursday. UK government bonds advanced, pushing the 30-year yield to a record low.
The pound fell 1.1 percent in the week to US$1.5155 at 5:18pm in London on Friday, having reached US$1.5035 on Thursday, the weakest level since July 2013. Sterling rose 0.3 percent to ￡0.7811 per euro.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS