The New Taiwan dollar on Friday fell against the US dollar, shedding NT$0.008 to close at NT$30.594, but gaining 0.1 percent from NT$30.611 on Oct. 18.
Turnover totaled US$703 million during the trading session.
The greenback opened at NT$30.600, and moved between NT$30.566 and NT$30.610 before the close.
Elsewhere, the US dollar strengthened against the pound after Reuters reported that a source close to French President Emmanuel Macron said that an extension to negotiations for Britain’s exit from the EU was not justified at this stage.
“France wants a justified and proportionate extension. However, we have nothing of the sort so far. We must show the British that it is up to them to clarify the situation and that an extension is not a given,” the source said.
Against the pound, the US dollar was up 0.29 percent to US$1.281.
Since hitting a five-and-a-half-month high on Monday, sterling has fallen nearly 1.5 percent after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s timetable to pass legislation that would withdraw Britain from the EU was rejected by parliament, the reason for the requested extension.
On Thursday, Johnson called for a general election on Dec. 12 in an effort to break the political deadlock over Brexit.
Despite the uncertainty, the pound’s fall has been limited, as the chance of a “no-deal exit has been all, but eliminated. The pound remains up 4.34 percent this month.
Against the euro, it was down 0.17 percent to £0.8655 per euro.
“There’s still a focus on the UK and sterling, but that’s going to be a feature for a long time,” Credit Suisse Group AG global head of foreign exchange strategy Shahab Jalinoos said.
Apart from the ongoing Brexit saga, Jalinoos said that the international currency market was relatively quiet on Friday.
“At the moment, the market is taking a breather on most fronts. The next event that’s a major focus is the APEC summit in the middle of November, when the market will want to see what transpires from phase-one negotiations between the US and China. That’s far enough in the future that it’s eliminating some reasons to aggressively trade,” Jalinoos said.
The low-volatility environment is encouraging flows into certain higher-yielding assets like emerging markets and out of the funding currencies such as the Swiss franc and the euro, he said.
The single currency was last down 0.14 percent against the US dollar to US$1.109.
Some focus will shift next week to the US Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting. The central bank is on Wednesday expected to announce the third interest rate cut of the year.
Money markets have largely priced in a quarter-percentage-point reduction, Refinitiv data showed.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary