GERMANY
Trade surplus narrows
The country’s trade surplus last year narrowed for the fifth year in a row, official data showed yesterday, as a global supply crunch hampered exports, including in its key auto sector. The trade balance of Europe’s biggest economy showed a surplus of 173.3 billion euros (US$197.9 billion) last year, down from 180.4 billion euros in 2020, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement. While the country’s exports of 1.375 trillion euros last year exceeded imports of 1.2 trillion euros, imports grew faster — by 17 percent — than exports, which rose by 14 percent, Destatis said.
TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft eyeing Mandiant
Microsoft Corp is in talks to acquire cybersecurity research and incident response company Mandiant Inc, people familiar with the discussions said, a deal that would bolster efforts to protect customers from hacks and breaches. The deliberations might not result in an offer, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Mandiant and Microsoft declined to comment. A deal would enable Microsoft to better compete with companies focused solely on security and might also push cloud rivals Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google to pursue their own similar acquisitions, Bloomberg Intelligence’s Anurag Rana said.
BANKING
CBA profit tops estimates
Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA) first-half profit topped estimates and the bank said it would buy back up to A$2 billion (US$1.4 billion) of its stock as the nation’s largest lender continued to benefit from a recovery in the country’s economy. Cash profit from continuing operations climbed 23 percent to A$4.75 billion in the six months that ended on Dec. 31 last year, the Sydney-based bank said yesterday. The firm’s net interest margin was down 14 basis points to 1.92 percent, driven in part by homeowners switching to fixed-rate loans and competition in that sector. Commonwealth Bank raised its interim dividend to A$1.75 per share.
BANKING
Amro to buy back shares
ABN Amro Bank NV said it would start a 500 million euro share buyback after fourth-quarter profit jumped, joining European peers in pledging higher returns as the industry rebounds from the pandemic. Net income soared to 552 million euros in the period, exceeding the 426 million euros that analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected on average, boosted by fee income and the sale of the bank’s head office. Provisions for loan losses fell to 121 million euros from 220 million euros. The Dutch state, which holds 56.3 percent of ABN Amro after a financial crisis-era bailout, said it would take part in the buyback and receive about 281 million euros.
AUTOMOTIVE
European sales likely to rise
European auto sales are expected to rise again this year as the microchip shortage that has put the brakes on the sector would ease, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said on Tuesday. Passenger vehicle registrations in the 27-nation EU are forecast to grow by 7.9 percent to 10.5 million units, the association said. However, the figure remains almost 20 percent below the 2019 pre-pandemic level as sales collapsed last year due to the severe shortage of semiconductors. New passenger vehicle registrations fell by 2.4 percent to 9.7 million units last year.
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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