US financial regulators determined that the infrastructure of stock and commodity markets remained “resilient” during the volatility in trading seen over the past few weeks.
“The regulators believe the core infrastructure was resilient during high volatility and heavy trading volume,” according to a statement issued by the US Department of the Treasury following a meeting on Thursday convened by US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.
Officials also agreed that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should issue a “timely study of the events.”
Yellen called the confab after surges in stocks including GameStop Corp and sudden trading curbs on smaller, retail investors spurred concerns about consumer protections.
The SEC is investigating for signs of fraud, while key US House of Representative and Senate committees are planning hearings.
The SEC and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are also “reviewing whether trading practices are consistent with investor protection and fair and efficient markets,” the department said on Thursday.
The gathering brought together the heads of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the SEC, the CFTC and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which serves as the central bank’s main monitor of Wall Street.
Yellen “believes it is imperative to uphold the integrity of these markets and ensure investor protection,” the department said.
The meeting gave the administration of US President Joe Biden a chance to demonstrate that itj is attuned to complaints about potential manipulation and unfair investor treatment after two congressional committees moved to hold hearings.
The controversy erupted late last month during a spectacular clash between retail investors and powerful hedge funds that pushed a handful of stocks, including GameStop, in opposite directions. That clash raised concerns over whether some investors were engaged in share-price manipulation.
However, the dust-up escalated when several broker-dealers were forced to post much higher collateral to cover the cash commitments behind massive buy orders in suddenly volatile shares.
That prompted Robinhood Markets Inc and other brokers catering to retail traders to suspend buying in certain shares, enraging customers and bringing accusations of unfair treatment.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li