The US dollar on Friday dipped as a US Federal Reserve official said rate hikes are likely to slow and investors took profits from earlier gains after last month’s US jobs data and wage inflation were surprisingly robust, obscuring the outlook for how hawkish the US central bank would be.
The greenback initially jumped after data showed that employers added 263,000 jobs last month, well above estimates of 200,000.
“Stronger-than-expected hiring can buy the Fed more time to stay aggressive,” said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Convera in Washington.
Photo: Bloomberg
Investors zeroed in on an increase in average hourly earnings by 0.6 percent in the month, above expectations of a 0.3 percent gain, and the participation rate, which declined to 62.1 percent, said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex in New York.
“Both of those measures reflect more than the nonfarm payroll growth number the tightness of the labor market,” he said.
However, the US dollar gave back gains as investors took profits before the weekend and as Fed officials spoke on the outlook.
Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said that the pace of increases is likely to slow, but the US central bank would likely need to raise borrowing costs to a “slightly higher” peak than envisioned in forecasts from September.
Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said the US is likely in a sustained period in which there would continue to be a shortage of workers, complicating the Fed’s aim of getting labor demand back into balance.
The US dollar index on Friday closed down 0.21 percent against a basket of currencies at 104.51, declining 1.37 percent weekly.
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar on Friday, gaining NT$0.028 to close at NT$30.605, up 0.97 percent from NT$30.905 a week earlier.
The greenback slipped 0.76 percent against the Japanese yen to ¥134.31, while the euro gained 0.15 percent to US$1.0543.
Additional reporting by CNA, with staff writer
This time was supposed to be different. The memorychip sector, famous for its boom-and-bust cycles, had changed its ways. A combination of more disciplined management and new markets for its products — including 5G technology and cloud services — would ensure that companies delivered more predictable earnings. Yet, less than a year after memory companies made such pronouncements, the US$160 billion industry is suffering one of its worst routs ever. There is a glut of the chips sitting in warehouses, customers are cutting orders and product prices have plunged. “The chip industry thought that suppliers were going to have better control,” said
Enimmune Corp (安特羅生技) has obtained marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its EnVAX-A71 vaccine for enterovirus 71 (EV-71), becoming the nation’s first enterovirus vaccine completely made in Taiwan, it said yesterday. After spending 13 years and NT$1.5 billion (US$49.77 million) on the research and development of the vaccine, Enimmune plans to start manufacturing and marketing it by the end of March, the company said in a statement, without disclosing customer order figures. “It is possible that the vaccine would not be included in a national vaccination program initially, and consumers would need to pay for it themselves,” parent
Vaccine skeptics blocking transfusions for life-saving surgeries, Facebook groups inciting violence against doctors and a global search for unvaccinated donors — COVID-19 misinformation has bred a so-called “pure blood” movement. The movement spins anti-vaccine narratives focused on unfounded claims that receiving blood from people inoculated against COVID-19 “contaminates” the body. Some have advocated for blood banks that draw from “pure” unvaccinated people, while medics in North America say they have fielded requests from people demanding transfusions from donors who have not received a vaccine. In closed social media groups, vaccine skeptics — who brand themselves as “pure bloods” — promote violence against doctors
Asteroid mining start-up AstroForge Inc is planning to launch its first two missions to space this year as it seeks to extract and refine metals from deep space. The first launch, scheduled for April, is to test AstroForge’s technique for refining platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material. The second, planned for October, would scout for an asteroid near Earth to mine. The missions are part of AstroForge’s goal of refining platinum-group metals from asteroids, with the aim of bringing down the cost of mining these metals. It also hopes to reduce the massive amount of carbon emissions that stem from mining