Sterling dropped against a stronger US dollar on Friday, but recovered some of the previous session’s losses against the euro and posted a small weekly gain as market attention focused on the possibility of a Bank of England (BOE) rate hike next week.
The US dollar rose about 0.9 percent, jumping as government bonds rose and traders saw new inflation reports as challenging major central banks to pull back on asset purchases more quickly than planned.
The US dollar’s strength saw cable, which had been steady for much of Friday’s European session, drop to a two-week low.
The pound was down 0.8 percent on the day at US$1.36835 and down 0.5 percent for the week.
However, against the euro, the pound rose about 0.4 percent to £0.84405 per euro, up 0.3 percent weekly.
The pound had fallen against the euro in the previous session after the European Central Bank meeting kept investors expecting a rate hike next year and did not calm their fears about surging inflation, leading to a jump in eurozone bond yields and a stronger euro.
In Taipei, the New Taiwan dollar on Friday rose against the greenback, gaining NT$0.014 to close at NT$27.820, up 0.3 percent for the week.
The pound’s moves this week have been driven by speculation over whether the Bank of England would hike rates at its meeting on Thursday, or whether concerns about the possible longer-term hit to economic growth stemming from supply chain disruptions and Brexit would cause the bank to hold back.
The UK threatened to open trade dispute proceedings against France if Paris imposes sanctions on London in a rapidly deteriorating stand-off over post-Brexit fishing rights.
Markets were pricing in a 62 percent chance of a hike at next week’s meeting, up from a 56 percent chance in the previous session, according to data from CME.
“Our suspicion is that the pound should find some support as we approach Thursday’s BOE meeting, and with a lot of positives in the price for the EUR, the 0.8500 resistance should hold for now,” ING FX strategists wrote in a note to clients.
Additional reporting by CNA, with staff writer
In a middle-class suburb of Mumbai, workers at Softbank Group Corp-backed Swiggy’s grocery warehouse race against time to deliver orders within 10 minutes. Their speed is tracked by the seconds on a screen that flashes red warnings if they are going too slow. Outside in the sweltering heat, Swiggy’s bikers, sporting the firm’s trademark bright orange T-shirt, frantically collect packed grocery orders to deliver them nearby, while others return to tackle another shipment assigned on their app and waiting. “Ideally, one needs to get done with the entire [pickup] process in 1 minute, 30 seconds,” Swiggy warehouse manager Prateek Salunke said. Swiggy warehouses
European Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (ESMC), a subsidiary of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), will hire almost 2,000, from Germany and other European countries, ESMC president Christian Koitzsch said on Monday. At the Taiwan-Europe semiconductor cooperation forum in Berlin, Koitzsch said ESMC would utilize TSMC’s advanced technologies, talent in Europe and good work ethic in Germany to build a world-class talent pool for the semiconductor industry. In August last year, TSMC announced it would team up with Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG and NXP Semiconductors NV to set up ESMC, in which the Taiwanese partner would hold a
Lasse Stolley was looking for a change in scenery after a planned apprenticeship fell through. So nearly two years ago the teenager began living on German trains. The epic journey has taken the 17-year-old from a small community in Germany’s windswept far north to the country’s southern borders and beyond. Setting off in August 2022, he has traveled a staggering 650,000 kilometers, the equivalent of going around the Earth more than 15 times, while sitting on trains for more than 6,700 hours. “Being able to decide every day where I want to go is simply great — that’s freedom,” Stolley said in a
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is planning to invest billions of dollars over the next 15 years to build data centers in Taiwan and create an infrastructure region in the country by early next year, the Amazon.com Inc cloud computing subsidiary said yesterday. The new “AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region” aims to help customers and AWS partners in Taiwan store their content securely and run cloud-enabled workloads with lower latency from data centers in Taiwan, the company said. The project reflects AWS’ long-term commitment to Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region amid growing demand for cloud services, it said. The move comes as Taiwan has