The New Taiwan dollar on Friday fell against the US dollar, dropping NT$0.194 to close at NT$31.376, a decrease of 0.9 percent from a close of NT$31.090 a week earlier.
Turnover totaled US$1.713 billion during the trading session.
The greenback opened at NT$31.260, moving between NT$31.210 and NT$31.393 before the close.
Elsewhere on Friday, the US dollar fell broadly as news of slower US employment growth last month and heightened US-China trade tensions fueled expectations that the US Federal Reserve would cut interest rates again next month.
Nonfarm payrolls last month increased by 164,000 jobs, fewer than the month prior, and wages increased modestly, the US Department of Labor said.
The report came one day after US President Donald Trump announced an additional 10 percent tariff on US$300 billion of Chinese imports starting Sept. 1, leading financial markets to almost fully price in a rate cut next month.
The US dollar fell 0.76 percent against the Japanese yen to ￥106.58, its lowest since Jan. 3. Versus the euro, the greenback was 0.22 percent weaker at US$1.1109.
The Swiss franc, which like the yen serves as a safe-haven investment in times of market volatility, was 0.83 percent stronger at 0.9818 Swiss francs per US dollar.
“On balance it is probably a slightly [US] dollar-negative number, because I do think that the totality of the report increases the case for a Fed rate cut in September. We’re already at the point where we’re trading that,” BMO Capital Markets global head of foreign exchange strategy Greg Anderson said in New York.
The US central bank on Wednesday cut its short-term interest rate for the first time since 2008.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell described the widely anticipated 25 basis-point monetary policy easing as a mid-cycle policy adjustment to protect US expansion from a global economic slowdown happening outside its borders.
Following the cut, the US dollar rose in sympathy with US Treasury note prices, but that move had largely been retraced on Friday.
The chance of a rate cut next month was 98.1 percent on Friday afternoon, according to CME Group Inc’s FedWatch tool, a large jump from 56.2 percent a week prior.
Not all market participants were persuaded.
“We think that’s way too high. Clearly what [Powell] wanted to convey at the press conference was that there’s no certainty about what the next move is going to be,” AllianceBernstein Holding LP fixed income cohead Gershon Distenfeld said.
“The reality is that if the intention was to ease monetary conditions, this did exactly the opposite. Equities are down, the curve is flatter, the [US] dollar higher — all monetary tightening conditions here in the US. So they didn’t really accomplish much except getting markets nervous,” Distenfeld added.
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