HONG KONG
Business conditions stabilize
Business conditions in Hong Kong last month showed further signs of stabilization, as the government further eased social-distancing restrictions with COVID-19 infection rates largely under control. The IHS Markit purchasing managers’ index for the territory climbed to 49.6 last month, the highest since March 2018, when the reading was last above 50, which marks expansion. The results show that businesses in the territory were more willing to invest in new capacity than in previous months, yet with sentiment still negative amid concerns about the long-term economic effects of the pandemic. The survey was conducted from June 12 to 25, ahead of the implementation of the national security legislation imposed by China.
SINGAPORE
PM vows smooth change
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) yesterday said that he is determined to hand over Singapore “intact” and in “good working order” to the next generation of leaders, predicting that the COVID-19 pandemic would “weigh heavily” on the nation’s economy for at least a year. Speaking ahead of general elections on Friday, Lee said it is unclear how the pandemic would end, adding that the nation’s “biggest challenges lie ahead of us.” He said: “We don’t know how the pandemic will end or whether a lasting solution will be found in a vaccine or more effective treatment. We face a continuing danger to public health.”
GERMANY
Manufacturing rebounds
New orders for German manufacturing firms rebounded in May as COVID-19 lockdowns eased, official data showed yesterday, but the smaller-than-expected increase highlights the long road ahead for pandemic-hit economies. The indicator of future industrial activity climbed 10.4 percent month-on-month, federal statistics agency Destatis said, after a historic 26.2 percent slump in April. The Ministry of Economic Affairs said that the latest data suggested “that the industrial recession has bottomed out” in Germany. However, with order intake still almost 30 percent lower than in May last year, “the catch-up process is far from over,” it said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Car registrations fall
British new car registrations fell by one-third on an annual basis last month, when many dealerships reopened after COVID-19 lockdown measures were lifted, according to preliminary data from an industry body, a smaller drop than in March, April and May. About 145,000 units were registered last month, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said. In March, demand fell 44 percent, in April by 97 percent and in May registrations were down 89 percent, it said. Year-to-date, the market was almost 50 percent behind where it was at the same time last year, it said.
BANKING
Turkey limits short-selling
Turkey imposed a ban on six foreign banks from betting against the nation’s stocks in a move that appeared to contradict recent steps toward easing such restrictions. Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Merrill Lynch International, Barclays Bank PLC, Credit Suisse Group AG and Wood & Co have been barred from short-selling stocks for up to three months, Borsa Istanbul said in a statement. The announcement came less than week after the country’s Capital Markets Regulator removed a short-selling ban on its largest listed companies on Tuesday last week.
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
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
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
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