The situation in the Middle East heated up and international oil prices exceeded 100 yuan. The New Taiwan dollar ended its 4-day streak and closed at 31.548 yuan.

The escalating situation in the Middle East caused international oil prices to once again exceed the US$100 per barrel mark, adding uncertainty to global inflation and central bank policies. Taiwan stocks closed lower today along with US stocks, falling below 47,000 points, and foreign investors turned oversold. This also caused the New Taiwan dollar to end its four-day rise against the US dollar. It finally closed at 31.548 yuan, a depreciation of 4.3 cents, with a trading volume of US$2.6095 billion.

Taiwan stocks fell 242.87 points today to close at 46940.49 points. The three major legal persons sold more than 50.311 billion yuan in total, of which foreign investors sold more than 38.334 billion yuan. The New Taiwan dollar opened at 31.53 yuan, with an intraday high of 31.49 yuan and a low of 31.581 yuan. The overall price was still within a narrow range around 31.5 yuan.

Major Asian currencies paused with the rise of the yen, including the Korean won, Japanese yen and New Taiwan dollar, which also weakened simultaneously. However, the decline was not deep and they were still in a relatively high-end zone. The market is awaiting the latest U.S. inflation data for clues on the Federal Reserve's policy direction next week.

The United States will release the Producer Price Index (PPI) for August today and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) tomorrow. The market expects the annual CPI growth rate in August to be approximately 3.4%, the core CPI annual growth rate to be approximately 2.4%, and the monthly growth rate is expected to increase both the overall CPI and PPI by approximately 0.4%. If the inflation data is higher than expected, it may further increase market expectations for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates; currently, the market is betting about 60% that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week.

According to statistics from the central bank, as of 4 p.m., the U.S. dollar index rose slightly by 0.06%, the Korean won fell by 0.42%, the Japanese yen depreciated by 0.19%, the New Taiwan dollar depreciated by 0.14%, and the RMB depreciated by 0.03%.

In addition, "Super Central Bank Week" is about to debut next week. The Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the Central Bank will successively announce the latest policy trends, and the subsequent trends of the US dollar, Japanese yen and New Taiwan dollar will also be affected.

Prior to this, the European Central Bank took the lead today. The market is generally expected to raise interest rates by 1 point. The euro has strengthened recently and is currently oscillating around US$1.16.