The Turkish lira yesterday plunged as much as 12 percent against the yen, forcing Japanese investors to liquidate positions in one of their favorite emerging-market trades for the second time this year.
Much of the lira’s sell-off happened at about 7:20am in Tokyo, when Japanese margin-trading firms typically start closing lossmaking client positions.
Net lira-yen longs held by margin accounts rose last week to the highest level since the middle of June, Tokyo Financial Exchange Inc data showed.
The drop exacerbated after a tit-for-tat exchange of tariffs by China and the US on Friday spurred a rush for haven assets.
Earlier this year, yield-hungry Japanese retail investors were also caught in a flash crash, when the yen in January surged against every currency tracked by Bloomberg during the so-called witching hour of the Asian morning.
“Margin accounts have recently accumulated lira longs,” said Toshiya Yamauchi, chief manager for foreign-exchange margin trading at Ueda Harlow Ltd in Tokyo. “Given the lira’s nature as a high volatility currency, the surge in the yen must have triggered stop-losses this morning.”
The lira plunged to a low of 16.1485 against the yen, before paring most of its slide.
It traded down 1.3 percent at 18.0680 as of 3:18pm in Tokyo.
The early slide was also echoed in other currency pairs, with the lira dropping as much as 9.9 percent against the US dollar.
The Turkish currency was the most actively traded emerging-market currency by Japanese retail investors last month, with ￥1.39 trillion (US$13.2 billion) worth of lira-yen traded that month, according to the latest data from the Financial Futures Association of Japan.
Japanese margin-trading firms tend to evaluate their client positions every day, typically at about 7am in Tokyo and liquidate them if losses reach certain levels.
As Japanese retail investors are typically thirsty for yield, they tend to accumulate long positions in risk assets, leaving them exposed to a sudden rally in the yen, according to a research paper from the Bank of Japan.
The Turkish central bank last month started unwinding last year’s interest-rate hikes, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan replaced the bank’s chief for failing to act in line with his expectations for a rate cut.
A run on the lira saw the currency lose about a quarter of its value during August last year, tipping the economy into its first technical recession in a decade.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY: Alibaba is one of a number of Chinese firms that has answered Beijing’s call to invest in the development of cutting-edge technologies Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) yesterday unveiled a new server chip that is based on advanced 5-nanometer technology, marking a milestone in China’s pursuit of semiconductor self-sufficiency. The Chinese tech giant’s newest chip is based on micro-architecture provided by the SoftBank Group Corp-owned Arm Ltd, it said. Alibaba, which is holding its annual cloud summit in Hangzhou, China, said that the chip is to be used in its own data centers in the “near future” and would not, for the time being, be sold commercially. “Customizing our own server chips is consistent with our ongoing efforts toward boosting our computing capabilities with better
Production at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp’s (TSMC, 台積電) fabs was not affected by a fire at a construction site for a water recycling facility in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker said that the construction site is not adjacent to its fabs, which were unaffected. CTCI Corp (中鼎工程) is responsible for the construction of the facility, which it is to operate itself once it is completed, the chipmaker said. The facility caught fire at about 11am, and the blaze was brought under control about 30 minutes after the incident was reported, the Southern Taiwan Science Park Administration
AGGRESSIVE STEP: With the new processors, Apple is aiming at the high-end chips Intel has provided for the MacBook Pro and other top-end Macs for about 15 years Apple Inc on Monday took the most aggressive step yet to strip Intel Corp chips from its computers, announcing more powerful homegrown Mac processors alongside a total revamp of its MacBook Pro laptop computers. The company showcased the chips at an event called “Unleashed,” which also included its latest audio products. The new components, called the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, are 70 percent faster than its M1 predecessors, Apple said. It also unveiled a redesigned MacBook Pro, adding larger screens, MagSafe charging and better resolution. With the new processors and devices, Apple is aiming squarely at the high-end chips that Intel has
‘NO NEGOTIATING’: Acer spokesperson Steven Chung said customers in India whose data were affected were informed, while no user data in Taiwan was compromised PC vendor Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday confirmed that it was hacked twice in one week — once in Taiwan and once in India — but denied any damage or leak of customer data. Acer spokesperson Steven Chung (鐘興維) said that the customers in India whose data were affected were informed, while no user data in Taiwan was compromised. The hackers have tried to initiate communication, but Acer has not responded, Chung said. “We are not going to negotiate and it is not company policy to pay ransom to hackers,” he said. Upon detecting the hack, Acer initiated all security protocols and conducted
RSS