UNITED STATES
House prices bounce back
House prices rebounded strongly last month, suggesting underlying demand and a shortage of homes for sale are underpinning the market after a tax break on purchases was withdrawn. The 2.1 percent increase, the second-largest gain in 15 years, followed a 0.6 percent decline in July, when the tapering of a year-long stamp duty holiday landed buyers of more expensive homes with a significant tax bill. The annual pace of growth accelerated to 11 percent from 10.5 percent, the figures from Nationwide Building Society showed. The average house price stood at ￡248,857 (US$342,419) last month, an increase of almost ￡25,000 compared with a year earlier, Nationwide said.
GERMANY
Retail sales fall 5.1 percent
Retail sales fell by far more than expected in July after two months of sharp increases, data showed yesterday. The Federal Statistics Office said retail sales dropped 5.1 percent on the month in real terms after a revised jump of 4.5 percent in June and an increase of 4.6 percent in May. The July reading missed a Reuters forecast for a fall of 0.9 percent. The monthly comparison was distorted heavily by the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions on shopping in most parts of the nation in June, the statistics office said. Retail sales edged down by 0.3 percent in real terms year-on-year, it added.
EL SALVADOR
Bitcoin fund approved
Congress on Tuesday approved a law to create a US$150 million fund to facilitate conversions from bitcoin to US dollars ahead of the Central American nation’s planned adoption of the cryptocurrency as legal tender next week. With 64 votes in favor and 14 votes against, Congress approved the fund as the nation prepares to officially adopt bitcoin on Tuesday next week. The Central American nation would be the first in the world to use the cryptocurrency as legal tender. Money for the new fund would be redirected from the Ministry of Finance’s budget and administered by State Development Bank of El Salvador, lawmakers said.
AIRLINES
SAS’ net loss narrows
Scandinavian airline SAS yesterday said that it sees encouraging signs of travel increasing, but it still faces “headwinds” from the COVID-19 pandemic as it reported a narrower net loss. The carrier reported a net loss of 1.36 billion Swedish kronor (US$157.6 million) for May to July, down from a net loss of 2.37 billion kronor for the same period the previous year. Revenue rose to 3.98 billion kronor, from 2.5 billion kronor a year earlier, the company said, driven mainly by increased demand, but the company noted that was still 70 percent below the same quarter of 2019, which was unaffected by COVID-19.
INTERNET
Google extends home work
Google is extending its voluntary return-to-office policy through January next year, chief executive Sundar Pichai said on Tuesday, citing uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in many parts of the world. The rapid spread of the more contagious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 is also making companies reconsider their mask mandates and vaccination policies. “Beyond January 10, we will enable countries and locations to make determinations on when to end voluntary work-from-home based on local conditions,” Pichai said in an e-mail to employees.
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
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
INDUSTRY LEADER: INDUSTRY LEADER: 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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