ARGENTINA
IMF to reopen office
The IMF on Monday said it has decided to reopen an office, six years after leaving. The decision came days after Buenos Aires reached a deal with the IMF on the money supply, interest rates and an exchange-rate framework. In exchange for these measures, the fund agreed to speed up payment of a US$50 billion loan granted in June to Latin America’s third-largest economy. IMF economist Trevor Alleyne is to be the fund’s representative in Buenos Aires. He has overseen IMF missions in countries such as Nigeria, Zambia, Jamaica, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador.
UNITED KINGDOM
Wages rise most since 2009
Wages are growing at their fastest pace in almost a decade, suggesting that the economy is continuing to operate with little slack. Average earnings excluding bonuses rose 3.1 percent in the three months through August, the most since January 2009, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday. Unemployment held at a 43-year low of 4 percent. While wage growth remains below its pre-crisis average, muted productivity means that even a modest pickup could fuel inflation as companies raise prices to protect their margins. Bank of England officials in August raised interest rates, although Brexit uncertainty means no further increases are expected before March next year.
INDIA
Q3 home sales rise 9%
Home sales rose 9 percent across the nation’s seven biggest cities in the third quarter, boosted by low-budget apartments, Anarock Property Consultants Pvt said. The highest sales were recorded in Mumbai and Pune, which accounted for about 27 percent of purchases across the cities, the real-estate broker said in a report. The National Capital Region, which covers Delhi and surrounding areas, and Hyderabad posted the lowest growth, with a 2 percent increase from the second quarter, the data showed. The third quarter is usually a slow period for the housing market because of the 15-day shraddh period, which is considered inauspicious for buying property.
BANKING
BoA blames risk avoidance
Bank of America Corp (BoA) blames some of its investment bank’s earnings miss on avoidance of riskier loan deals as shadow banks get tougher. However, since leveraged lending traffic cops stopped handing out tickets for infringing their guidance months back, this seems like a self-imposed limit. The US administration has long been telegraphing a loosening of rules on how banks arrange and syndicate leveraged finance debt. US Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting in February said that banks could do leveraged lending however they want, as long as it does not affect their soundness. After getting that green light, many Wall Street underwriters got more aggressive in pursuit of profit.
ENERGY
Drax to buy Iberdrola plants
Drax Group PLC agreed to buy some of Iberdrola SA’s power plants for ￡702 million (US$926.52 million), boosting its clean energy assets. The acquisition involves pumped storage, renewable hydro and gas-fired power assets and would increase the utility’s generation capacity by more than 60 percent to about 6.6 gigawatts, CEO Will Gardiner said yesterday. Once the deal is completed it would also help boost the company’s already-growing dividend by about 8 percent, he said. Drax has already rebuilt its facility in north Yorkshire, England, to fuel four of its six coal units with biomass.
‘DECENT RESULTS’: The company said it is confident thanks to an improving world economy and uptakes in new wireless and AI technologies, despite US uncertainty Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it plans to build a new server manufacturing factory in the US this year to address US President Donald Trump’s new tariff policy. That would be the second server production base for Pegatron in addition to the existing facilities in Taoyuan, the iPhone assembler said. Servers are one of the new businesses Pegatron has explored in recent years to develop a more balanced product lineup. “We aim to provide our services from a location in the vicinity of our customers,” Pegatron president and chief executive officer Gary Cheng (鄭光治) told an online earnings conference yesterday. “We
It was late morning and steam was rising from water tanks atop the colorful, but opaque-windowed, “soapland” sex parlors in a historic Tokyo red-light district. Walking through the narrow streets, camera in hand, was Beniko — a former sex worker who is trying to capture the spirit of the area once known as Yoshiwara through photography. “People often talk about this neighborhood having a ‘bad history,’” said Beniko, who goes by her nickname. “But the truth is that through the years people have lived here, made a life here, sometimes struggled to survive. I want to share that reality.” In its mid-17th to
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
The battle for artificial intelligence supremacy hinges on microchips, but the semiconductor sector that produces them has a dirty secret: It is a major source of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems. Global chip sales surged more than 19 percent to about US$628 billion last year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, which forecasts double-digit growth again this year. That is adding urgency to reducing the effects of “forever chemicals” — which are also used to make firefighting foam, nonstick pans, raincoats and other everyday items — as are regulators in the US and Europe who are beginning to
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