The US dollar on Friday posted its best weekly performance in more than seven months after strong US retail sales and producer prices data for last month reinforced expectations the US Federal Reserve would raise interest rates in December.
The US currency briefly trimmed gains versus the Japanese yen and euro after Fed Chair Janet Yellen said the US central bank might need to run a “high-pressure” economy to reverse damage from the last financial crisis.
Her view of the economy did not alter expectations for a December rate hike, analysts said.
“Yellen’s comments were more about the Fed looking down the road and her concerns about the last financial crisis shed light on why the Fed has been so hesitant to raise interest rates,” said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, added 0.57 percent to 98.069 and is up 1.5 percent for the week.
Against the yen, the US dollar on Friday rose 0.44 percent to ￥104.14. The US currency has rallied for three straight weeks versus the yen in the longest stretch of gains since May.
In Taipei, the New Taiwan dollar on Friday rose against the US dollar, gaining NT$0.088 to close at NT$31.672, reflecting a rebound staged by other regional currencies after a recent slump, dealers said.
The NT dollar this week fell 0.6 percent, or NT$0.192, against the US dollar from last week’s NT$31.480.
The euro fell 0.77 percent against the greenback to US$1.0971. It is down 1.6 percent for the week, its worst weekly performance since late February.
Swiss franc fell versus the US dollar after risk sentiment got a boost from Chinese data showing producer prices rose for the first time in about five years. That boded well for the global economy, which has been battling the threat of deflation in recent months.
The US retail sales data, which showed a 0.6 percent rise last month after declining 0.2 percent in August, supported the US dollar’s gains.
Other data on Friday suggested a pickup in inflation, with producer prices rising broadly last month to record their biggest year-on-year increase since December 2014.
The minutes of the latest Fed meeting last month, released on Wednesday, prompted investors to raise their bets of a US rate increase in December, to a 70 percent chance.
The Russian ruble retreated for the first week in four as the second-best forecaster of the currency said speculation the US will increase rates by the end of the year was crimping appetite for the nation’s assets.
The currency was steady at 62.9725 by 5:38pm in Moscow on Friday, heading for a 1.2 percent depreciation in the week.
The Thai baht climbed 0.8 percent, taking its two-day gain to 1.1 percent.
It is still down 1.1 percent for the week as Thailand mourns the death of its 88-year-old monarch, a unifying force in a nation which has seen 10 coups during his seven-decade reign.
South Africa’s rand lost 3.1 percent this week against the US dollar.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
RSS