TECHNOLOGY
Intel to cut Mobileye stake
Intel Corp plans to sell part of its holdings in Mobileye Global Inc, to raise about US$1.48 billion for its ambitious spending plans. The US company is offering 35 million shares with an option to sell a further 5.25 million shares of the Israeli automated driving technology maker, Mobileye said on Monday in a regulatory filing. Mobileye stock has more than doubled since its initial public offering in October last year. Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley are to underwrite the sale. Following the sale, Intel would retain about an 88 percent stake in Mobileye, which it bought in 2018 for US$15.3 billion.
CHINA
Deposit rates to shrink
Authorities have asked the nation’s biggest banks to lower their deposit rates for at least the second time in less than a year, people familiar with the matter said. Several state-owned lenders were last week advised to cut rates on a range of products, including on demand deposits by 5 basis points and three-year and five-year time deposits by at least 10 basis points, the people said. Banks are assessing the request and could adjust rates as early as this week, they said. Big lenders currently offer an annualized rate of 0.25 percent on demand deposits, and 2.6 percent and 2.65 percent on three-year and five-year time deposits respectively.
GERMANY
Industrial orders drop again
Industrial orders unexpectedly fell again in April following a sharp drop the month before, official data showed yesterday, adding to concerns about the health of Europe’s biggest economy. New orders, closely watched as a foretaste of future industrial activity, declined 0.4 percent in April from a month earlier, federal statistics agency Destatis said. The drop comes after orders plummeted 10.9 percent in March, the biggest decline since April 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced widespread lockdowns.
JAPAN
Real wage slide continues
Workers’ real wages continued to fall in April, even after reflecting some of the gains from a solid win in annual pay negotiations, creating a headache for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as he considers calling an election. Real cash earnings for workers dropped 3 percent from a year earlier in April, slipping for the 13th month, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported yesterday. Nominal cash earnings increased 1 percent from the previous year, it said. A separate report showed that households cut spending in April, an indication that higher prices are sapping consumers’ spending appetite. Household outlays fell 4.4 percent from a year earlier, it said.
GAMING
Microsoft to settle charges
Microsoft Corp is to pay US$20 million to settle government charges that it collected personal information from children without their parents’ consent, officials said on Monday. The US Federal Trade Commission alleged that from 2015 to 2020 Microsoft collected personal data from children under the age of 13 who signed up to its Xbox gaming system without their parents’ permission and retained the information. The decision still needs the approval of a federal court before it can be implemented. A spokesperson for Microsoft said that Xbox would develop an identity and age validation process to deliver age-appropriate experiences.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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