Oil trimmed its third weekly advance as Canadian energy producers moved to resume operations after wildfires eased.
Futures slipped 0.3 percent in New York. Suncor Energy Inc is seeking to return most of its workers by next week and begin startup of oil-sands facilities that were shut down by forest fires, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Prices climbed above US$50 a barrel on Thursday as declining US crude supplies eroded a global glut.
“Finally supply and demand are coming into balance,” said Mark Watkins, the Park City, Utah-based regional investment manager for The Private Client Group of US Bank. “There are going to be headwinds as you near the US$50-US$60 range. Inventories are still high and we have to work them off.”
Oil has surged more than 85 percent in New York since touching a 12-year low in February on signs the worldwide surplus will ease amid declining production in Nigeria, Libya, Canada and the US. OPEC is unlikely to reach any agreement to limit output when it meets on Thursday, as the group sticks with Saudi Arabia’s strategy of squeezing out rivals, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for July delivery dropped US$0.15 to close at US$49.33 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Front-month WTI climbed 3.3 percent this week. Futures touched US$50.21 on Thursday, the highest since Oct. 9. Total volume traded was 43 percent below the 100-day average at 2:45pm.
Brent for July settlement decreased US$0.27, or 0.5 percent, to US$49.32 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Futures rose 1.2 percent this week. The contract reached US$50.51 during trading on Thursday, the highest since Nov. 4. The global benchmark closed at a US$0.01 discount to WTI.
Meanwhile, gold is looking very different than it did at the beginning of this month. Along with platinum, palladium and silver, it is heading for the biggest monthly loss since November last year as investors anticipate higher borrowing costs in the US.
Bullion has pared this year’s rally after retreating more than 5 percent this month as the US dollar rallied and investors raised bets on the US Federal Reserve increasing interest rates as early as next month. Higher rates curb gold’s appeal against interest-bearing assets. US Fed Chair Janet Yellen spoke on Friday at Harvard University, saying an increase in rates in the coming months might be appropriate. The comments come after a number of regional Fed presidents have indicated their willingness to tighten policy.
Gold futures for August delivery dropped 0.5 percent to settle at US$1,216.70 an ounce at 1:47pm on the COMEX in New York. The metal is down 5.7 percent this month.
Holdings in gold-backed exchange-traded funds added 1.5 tonnes to 1,844.9 tonnes as of Thursday, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Silver futures for July delivery dropped 0.5 percent to US$16.269 an ounce on the COMEX. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, platinum and palladium declined.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
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