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By Gregor Stuart Hunter and Amanda Cooper SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters) -The dollar clawed steadily higher on Monday, as investors hoped the U.S. would temper its latest escalation of the trade war with China after Friday's selloff, while political developments in France and Japan undermined the euro and the yen. The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency's performance against a basket of six others, was last up 0.2% at 99.2, recovering from declines late last week after U.S. President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on China. The broadside revived bad memories of Trump's Liberation Day rollout of sweeping tariffs in April and sparked a selloff in stocks and cryptocurrencies on Friday. TRUMP SOFTENS TONE "Certainly it's pretty nervous out there," said Tim Kelleher, head of institutional FX Sales at Commonwealth Bank in Auckland.  "If you look at the U.S. and China stuff, it looks like Trump has done a bit of a TACO again and softened his tone," he added, referring to a trading adage that "Trump always chickens out." After announcing the 100% tariffs on Friday, Trump said on Sunday: "Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment," he posted on the Truth Social network. "He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!" Market liquidity may be affected by holidays as parts of the U.S. observe Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day later on Monday, though stock exchanges remain open. Japan was closed on Monday to mark Health and Sports Day. The euro fell 0.3% to $1.1584, shrugging off the French presidency's announcement of Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu's new cabinet lineup on Sunday, reappointing Roland Lescure, a close ally of Emmanuel Macron, as finance minister. Against the yen, the dollar rose 0.8% to 152.295 yen. Markets assessed the path ahead for new Liberal Democratic Party leader Sanae Takaichi after Komeito quit the ruling coalition on Friday, dealing a blow to her hopes of becoming the first female prime minister of the world's fourth-largest economy. Cryptocurrency markets fluctuated between gains and losses after a sharp selloff on Friday, with bitcoin last trading up 0.2% at $115,313. Gold hit a fresh record of $4,079.1 an ounce and was last up 1.5%.  The offshore yuan recovered some stability to trade at 7.1416 per dollar, having reached a weak point of 7.144 overnight, after data showed China's export growth picked up pace in September. POSSIBLE CARRY TRADE IMPACT Even with sentiment on the up on Monday, analysts said the mood was fragile and currencies were likely prone to larger price swings. "As we saw earlier this year neither side can tolerate such high tariffs for long and the comments from President Trump over the weekend again point towards a path for de-escalation," MUFG strategist Lee Hardman said. "As a result, the trade threats may just contribute a more volatile FX market in the near-term and trigger some unwind of carry trades," he added. Traders will often borrow in a low-yielding currency to invest in a higher-yielder, known as a carry trade. The Japanese yen and Swiss franc have typically been funding currencies and took a harder knock than others on Monday. The Australian dollar, which tends to rally in a risk-on environment, rose 0.75% to $0.6521, making it the best-performing major currency against the dollar on Monday. The pound, a fellow risk-on currency, was flat at $1.3327. (Reporting by Gregor Stuart Hunter; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Jamie Freed, Aidan Lewis)

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(Changes headline, no changes to text.) By Mimosa Spencer PARIS (Reuters) -The doubling of gold prices in two years, along with U.S. tariffs and a weaker dollar, have made it harder to defend gross margins for Tiffany owner LVMH and others in the high-end goods industry.  “Each of these [factors] alone could be offset by the high-end branded jewellery players and watchmakers but all together, it becomes very difficult" to keep profit margins from being eroded, said Jon Cox, head of Swiss equities at Kepler Cheuvreux.       Gold surged above $4,000 an ounce to a record last week as investors sought safety due to economic and geopolitical uncertainty and expectations of further U.S. interest rate cuts. PRESSURE ON PROFIT MARGINS LIKELY TO MEAN PRICE HIKES “There is bound to be margin pressure,” Cox added, noting brands would likely implement price hikes to shoppers gradually.    LVMH, the world’s biggest luxury conglomerate, is expected to report flat third-quarter sales when it reports on Tuesday, with a 4% decline in fashion and leather goods and 1% growth in watches and jewellery, according to a VisibleAlpha consensus figure cited by HSBC.       Jewellery brands, including LVMH’s Tiffany and Bulgari, Richemont’s Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Kering’s Boucheron have recently outperformed stablemates focusing on fashion. At LVMH, first-half sales in watches and jewellery were flat and profit sank 13%. Its fashion and leather goods division, which includes Louis Vuitton and Dior, saw profit plummet 18% on a sales drop of 7%. Watches and jewellery make up over 12% of LVMH sales, and fashion about half of group sales.  Tiffany and Bulgari are among LVMH’s top five brands in terms of annual earnings, according to estimates from HSBC.  CAUTION NEEDED ON PASSING COST HIKES TO CONSUMERS Despite gold’s sharp rally, the metal represents a small share of input costs for luxury jewellery brands, or just 10% of jewellery sales on average, according to Manuel Lang, equity analyst, consumer goods at Vontobel. That percentage drops to between 5% and 8% for designer brands at the very high end, said Bernstein analyst Luca Solca. So, "even a modest retail price increase could take care of material gold price increases," said Solca. As brands seek to ease pressure on margins, they would need to be cautious about passing on price increases to shoppers so as not to erode demand, other analysts said. For Swiss-listed Richemont, which focuses more on jewellery than rivals and has outpaced peers, that has not translated to upgrades to earnings forecasts due to factors like currency rates and gold prices, which were "completely out of their control," said Zuzanna Pusz, analyst with UBS.   (Reporting by Mimosa Spencer; Editing by Lisa Jucca and Bernadette Baum)

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By Ben Blanchard and Wen-Yee Lee TAIPEI (Reuters) -TSMC, the world's largest manufacturer of advanced artificial intelligence chips, is expected to post a 28% jump in third-quarter profit to a record due to the insatiable demand for AI infrastructure, though U.S. tariffs could impact its outlook. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world's No. 1 contract chipmaker and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, is forecast to report a net profit of T$415.4 billion ($13.55 billion) for the three months through September 30, according to an LSEG SmartEstimate compiled from 20 analysts. SmartEstimates place greater weight on forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate. TSMC has already flagged a market-forecast-beating rise in third-quarter revenue of 30%. Any profit result above T$398.3 billion would mark the company's highest-ever quarterly net income and its seventh consecutive quarter of profit growth. Mario Morales, group vice president at research firm IDC, said he expects TSMC's revenue to grow at least 30% to 35% this year. "I am expecting that TSMC will continue to outperform its peers given the ongoing exponential growth of AI infrastructure investments and that the leading chip suppliers such as Nvidia and AMD have only one place to go – TSMC," he said. Morales said that even as tariffs and trade disputes add uncertainty, AI infrastructure remains a "strategic land grab" for cloud-service providers, manufacturers and companies, ensuring investment continues to concentrate in that space. TSMC, Asia's most valuable listed company with a market capitalisation of around $1.22 trillion – nearly three times that of South Korean rival Samsung Electronics – is due to report on Thursday and will provide fourth-quarter guidance in an earnings call scheduled for 0600 GMT. It remains unclear how much U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs will affect TSMC. Taiwan's exports to the United States are currently subject to a 20% tariff, but that excludes chips. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick proposed last month that Taiwanese companies split their production of chips 50-50 between Taiwan and the U.S., compared to the current setup where the vast majority of the production is on the island.  Taiwan has rejected that idea, and TSMC is already investing $165 billion building factories in the U.S. in the state of Arizona. Shares in TSMC have gained 30% so far this year on optimism over AI, largely brushing off tariff concerns. The heavyweight's rise has powered the benchmark Taiwanese index's 16.9% advance over the same period. ($1 = 30.66 Taiwan dollars) (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Wen-Yee Lee; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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By Heekyong Yang SEOUL (Reuters) -Samsung Electronics is expected to post its highest third-quarter profit since 2022, driven by higher memory chip prices supported by server demand as customers rebuild inventories, analysts' estimates showed. The world's biggest maker of memory chips is projected to report an operating profit of 10.1 trillion won ($7.11 billion) for the July-September period, according to LSEG SmartEstimate from 31 analysts, which is weighted toward those who are more consistently accurate. This would be up 10% from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the recovery mainly to better conventional memory chip pricing, which would offset weaker sales volumes of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips as Samsung has yet to supply its latest HBM products to Nvidia. HBM chips, critical for artificial intelligence (AI) development, are designed to reduce power consumption and process large datasets by stacking chips vertically. Analysts said demand for memory chips, particularly from hyperscalers and AI-related investments for services such as ChatGPT, have put more workload on general servers, thus boosting conventional memory chip prices. Prices of some DRAM chips, widely used in servers, smartphones and PCs, jumped 171.8% in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to TrendForce data. While Samsung's conventional memory business performed well, analysts said delays in supplying its latest 12-layer HBM3E chips to Nvidia have hurt its profit and share price. Rivals SK Hynix and Micron have gained more from AI-driven demand, while Samsung's exposure to China, where advanced chip sales are restricted by the United States, has constrained its growth. Analysts said market sentiment toward Samsung's shares and chip business, including both memory and contract chip manufacturing, is expected to improve as it secures supply deals with major customers such as OpenAI and Tesla. Samsung shares have risen more than 43% following its announcement of a chip supply deal with Tesla in July. During OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's visit to South Korea earlier this month, Samsung, SK Hynix and OpenAI announced partnerships to supply advanced memory chips to the Stargate project. The AI chip deal between OpenAI and AMD, one of Samsung's major HBM customers, would also benefit Samsung, said Ryu Young-ho, a senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities. Ryu added that Samsung's $16.5 billion foundry deal with Tesla has lifted expectations that Samsung's struggling contract chip manufacturing business could win more orders from major tech firms if the company delivers the project as planned. While recent AI-driven supply deals signal a positive outlook for Samsung, analysts cautioned that uncertainties remain, including potential U.S. tariffs on chips and China's tightened export controls on rare earth materials used in advanced chips and manufacturing equipment. In September, Micron said it expects to sell out all of its HBM chips for calendar year 2026 in the coming months due to strong demand. Samsung will announce its estimates on revenue and operating profit on Tuesday, with full results due later this month. ($1 = 1,420.1000 won) (Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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By Enes Tunagur LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices rose on Monday after hitting five-month lows in the previous session, as investors focused on potential talks between the presidents of the United States and China that could ease trade tensions between the world's two largest economies and oil consumers. Brent crude futures rose 94 cents, or 1.5%, to $63.67 a barrel by 0824 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $59.81 a barrel, up 89 cents, or 1.54%. Both contracts lost around 4% on Friday to settle at their lowest since May. "Last week's price meltdown was largely on the back of ceasefire in Gaza and return of U.S.-China trade volatility ahead of the November 10 trade truce deadline," DBS energy analyst Suvro Sarkar said. The selloff in markets now looks to be capped by both parties' willingness to negotiate, he said, adding the near-term outlook hinged on the eventual outcome of the trade talks. Trade tensions flared up last week after China expanded its rare earth export controls. In response, U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he would impose 100% tariffs on China's U.S.-bound exports. An expected meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month was in doubt after Trump said on Friday there was no reason to meet his counterpart. U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer said on Sunday that meeting could still happen in South Korea on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Oil prices tumbled in March and April at the height of trade tensions between the two countries. On the demand side, China's crude imports in September rose 3.9% from a year earlier to 11.5 million barrels per day, customs data showed. In the Middle East, Palestinian militant group Hamas released the first seven surviving Israeli hostages, the initial phase of a ceasefire agreement that Trump helped to broker aimed at ending the conflict in Gaza. (Reporting by Enes Tunagur in London, Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Jamie Freed, Kirsten Donovan)

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