The New Taiwan dollar yesterday weakened 0.5 percent, or NT$0.144, to NT$29.05 in Taipei trading, the lowest in more than 18 months, as foreign players slashed holdings in pursuit of higher yields elsewhere, dealers said.
It is the first time since September 30, 2020, that the local currency ended weaker than NT$29 against the US dollar, the central bank’s Web site showed.
Combined turnover at Taipei Forex Inc and the smaller Cosmos Forex Inc totaled US$2.49 billion.
Photo: CNA
The NT dollar’s decline has much to do with global funds redeploying assets after central banks announced monetary tightening policies, currency traders said.
For example, the US Federal Reserve said that it would raise interest rates at each policy meeting this year, with analysts looking at a rate hike of 50 basis points next month to help rein in runaway consumer prices and production costs.
Expectations of rate increases prompted foreign players to cut local shares by a net NT$34.04 billion yesterday as higher yields wooed assets, traders said.
Lockdowns throughout China also fueled concern that Taiwanese firms that operate in China could take a hit, traders said.
Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday that local shares with average yields of 3.96 percent are more attractive than the 10-year US Treasury at 2.7 percent.
Local listed firms made record earnings of NT$5.2 trillion last year and are to distribute generous dividends later this year, Huang said, adding that ongoing share price corrections are likely transient in nature.
Traders said that the central bank would not let the NT dollar free-fall, but would intervene to keep it above NT$29.5.
Without intervention, the NT dollar would have dropped below NT$29.1, traders said, adding that the pressure to sell is likely to remain for the short term.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
RSS