TECHNOLOGY
Lenovo reports annual loss
Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) yesterday said it recorded a US$189 million net loss over its full fiscal year due largely to a one-time charge, adding that it was planning an overhaul to broaden its appeal. The Beijing-based company also reported a 69 percent annual decline in profit in its fourth quarter ending on March 31 to US$33 million. Revenue in the fourth quarter increased 11 percent year-on-year to 10.6 billion, the first double-digit increase in 10 quarters, while full-year revenue was up 5 percent.
LUGGAGE
Samsonite shares stumble
Samsonite International SA, the world’s largest branded-luggage maker, tumbled the most since 2012 after short-seller Blue Orca Capital questioned the company’s accounting and corporate governance. Samsonite concealed slowing growth with debt-funded acquisitions and inflated profit margins with dubious accounting linked to its takeovers, Blue Orca alleged in a report yesterday. Shares of the Hong Kong-listed company slumped 9.8 percent to HK$30.70 before trading was halted at 11:18am. Blue Orca said the stock is worth HK$17.59.
MACROECONOMICS
Singapore’s growth solid
Singapore’s economy remained on solid footing in the first quarter, with the government expressing more certainty of a steady pace of between 2.5 and 3.5 percent for this year as global trade risks and tightening financial conditions allow for a patient monetary policy. GDP rose at a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 1.7 percent from the prior three months, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said yesterday, higher than the government’s previous projection of 1.4 percent. GDP expanded 4.4 percent in the first quarter from the same period last year.
BANKING
Fed signals June rate hike
The key interest rate is likely to be raised “soon,” the US Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in a clear signal of a rate hike coming next month as financial markets expect. Fed officials cited the strength of the economy and solid hiring trends, as well as inflation inching higher at long last. However, the Fed would continue to move only gradually, even if inflation rises “modestly” above its 2 percent target, the minutes of the May 1 and May 2 meeting of its policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee showed.
BANKING
Turkey raises rate to 16.5%
The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey on Wednesday sharply raised its key lending rate to try to stem an outflow of capital from the country, control inflation and support the beleaguered currency. The Turkish lira regained some of its value after the bank’s monetary policy committee held an emergency meeting and announced that it was raising the rate from 13.5 percent to 16.5 percent. The value of the lira responded by rising to about 4.58 per US dollar, down about 5 percent from Tuesday.
TECHNOLOGY
Uber end Arizona test
Uber Technologies Inc is pulling its self-driving cars out of Arizona in a reversal triggered by the recent death of woman who was run over by one of the company’s robotic vehicles while crossing a darkened street in a Phoenix suburb. The decision announced on Wednesday means that Uber will not be bringing back its self-driving cars to the streets to Arizona, eliminating about 300 jobs.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
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