SINGAPORE
Demand weighs on outlook
The economic outlook has turned more uncertain, as tighter financial conditions weigh on global demand and China’s reopening is doing little more than boosting tourism, the central bank said. “The risks to growth in the global economy and in Singapore are tilted to the downside,” the central bank said yesterday in its biannual Macroeconomic Review. “Given the increase in banking industry stresses across global markets since March, lending conditions are expected to tighten even further, translating to a sharper slowdown in credit growth and weaker economic activity in the period ahead,” it said.
AUSTRALIA
Core inflation falls in Q1
Core inflation decelerated in the first three months of this year, lending weight to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s view that prices would steadily come down and supporting the case for it to extend an interest-rate pause. The local currency fell, and swaps traders boosted bets that the central bank would stand pat next week after official data showed that the central bank’s preferred trimmed mean gauge slowed to 6.6 percent from a year earlier, compared with 6.9 percent in the final three months of last year. On a quarterly basis, core inflation also slowed more than expected. The headline consumer price index advanced 7 percent from a year earlier, down from 7.8 percent in the previous quarter, the central bank’s data showed.
GERMANY
Consumer outlook brightens
Consumer morale rose sharply heading into next month, a key survey showed yesterday, as concerns eased about the impact of high inflation on Europe’s largest economy. Pollster GfK said its forward-looking survey of about 2,000 people climbed 3.6 points to reach minus-25.7 points, the seventh consecutive monthly increase. Improving sentiment was driven by lower energy prices, government relief measures aimed at tackling high costs and recent wage deals struck between various industries and workers, GfK said. The survey found respondents were more optimistic about their income prospects and the broader economy.
SWEDEN
Interest rate raised to 3.5%
The central bank yesterday raised its key interest rate, saying inflation “is still far too high and underlying inflation has been much higher than expected.” Riksbanken raised its policy rate by half a percentage point to 3.5 percent, saying that it would ”probably” be raised further by a quarter-point in June or September. ”The high inflation affects in particular households that have small margins to begin with, but the development is negative for the whole economy,” the central bank said in a statement. Annual inflation last month hit 10.6 percent, down from 12 percent in February.
UNITED STATES
Confidence at 9-month low
Consumer confidence dropped to a nine-month low this month as worries about the future mounted. The Conference Board’s survey on Tuesday showed that the consumer confidence index fell to 101.3, the lowest reading since July last year, from 104.0 last month. The present situation index, based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions, increased to 151.1 from 148.9 last month. The expectations index, drawn from consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business and labor market conditions, fell to 68.1 from 74.0 in March.
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
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says 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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