JAPAN
Unemployment rate falls
The unemployment rate has fallen for the first time in three months, potentially feeding into higher wages and providing support for the Bank of Japan’s sustainable inflation goal. The jobless rate dropped to 2.6 percent last month, as the number of those without jobs declined by 150,000 from the previous month, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said yesterday. Economists had expected the unemployment rate to decline to 2.7 percent. Separate data showed the jobs-to-applicants ratio remained unchanged from the previous month at 1.32, meaning there were 132 jobs available to every 100 applicants and indicating continued relative tightness in the labor market. “Various economic indicators show that the state of labor shortage is returning to pre-pandemic levels or worse, and there is strong pressure to raise wages,” SMBC Nikko Securities Inc economist Koya Miyamae said.
AUSTRALIA
New home approvals tumble
Approvals to build new homes tumbled to the lowest level in 11 years, driven by fewer permits for apartment buildings, suggesting weak residential property investment would continue to drag on the economy. Total dwelling approvals slid 8.1 percent last month from a month earlier as permits for apartments plunged 16.5 percent, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed yesterday. While the monthly series can be volatile, the trend has been weak for an extended period, with total approvals falling 24.1 percent from a year earlier. “Total dwellings approved fell to the lowest level since April 2012,” Australian Bureau of Statistics head of construction statistics Daniel Rossi said in a statement. “Private sector house approvals also continued to decline.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Retail prices up 9 percent
Prices in stores are rising at a record pace as the cost-of-living crisis shows little indication of easing. Shop price inflation accelerated to 9 percent this month, a new peak for an index that started in 2005, the British Retail Consortium said yesterday. That was an increase from 8.8 percent last month. “To help mitigate the impact of inflation, shoppers are saving money by looking for seasonal promotions on the high street and taking advantage of the price reductions offered by supermarket loyalty schemes,” said Mike Watkins, head of retailer and business insight at NielsenIQ, which produces the data for the British Retail Consortium. Food inflation decelerated to 15.4 percent this month, down from 15.7 percent last month, the consortium said. Lower energy and commodity costs meant lower prices on staples including butter, milk, fruit and fish.
SWITZERLAND
GDP growth beats forecasts
The economy picked up momentum at the beginning of the year after a stagnant finish to last year, while industry outlook and factory orders point to more difficult times ahead. GDP grew by 0.5 percent in the first quarter, government data published yesterday showed. That exceeded every single economist estimate in a Bloomberg survey, which had a median forecast of 0.1 percent. The main driver of the recovery was domestic consumption, which made up for flat government demand. The KOF Economic Barometer, published separately yesterday, declined a second consecutive month this month, showing that the “outlook for the Swiss economy for the middle of 2023 is thus deteriorating further and remains at a below-average level.”
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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