The Turkish lira rebounded, recouping losses after its worst day since a crash last year as the central bank reiterated its pledge to maintain price stability and said that it was determined to accumulate reserves.
Policymakers are probably seeking to end speculation that the Central Bank of Turkey was using its stockpile to support the currency before the March 31 elections. The currency advanced 3.4 percent in early trading, which can be volatile due to low liquidity.
The banks statement follows a surprise tightening of monetary policy on Friday last week and a statement from a bank official that said the drop in official reserves was not anything out of the ordinary.
Officials started a probe into JPMorgan Chase & Co and other banks for stoking the lira’s drop.
The currency’s one-week implied volatility extended its advance yesterday to the highest level since October last year. Its jump on Friday was the biggest since 2004.
Last week’s meltdown comes after local investors accumulated about US$25 billion of hard currency since September last year, a hedge against runaway inflation and uncertainty over the direction that policy would take after the elections.
Bankers deemed responsible for speculating against the currency would be punished, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.
“If you are soaking up foreign currencies from the market and engaging in provocative actions,” there will be “a heavy price for that,” Erdogan said in televised remarks during an election rally in Istanbul.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six