Stocks fell, led by AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), on concern sales of computer-monitor makers will drop as customers reduce inventories after US West Coast port operators and dockworkers reached an agreement to avoid a port shutdown.
The TAIEX fell 45.27, or 1 percent, to close at 4,677.89. More than five stocks dropped for every four that rose. The total value of trade was NT$74.36 billion (US$2.14 billion), 5 percent above the three-month daily average.
AU Optronics fell NT$1.50, or 5.8 percent, to NT$24.50. BenQ Corp (明基電通), which buys panels from AU Optronics to make computer monitors for customers such as Hewlett-Packard Co, fell NT$1.80, or 3.6 percent, to NT$47.80.
US West Coast port operators and dockworkers on Sunday reached an agreement on a contract that would increase wages and benefits. The agreement ends a dispute that closed ports for 10 days last month.
"Customers won't need to keep such big inventories, so they won't order so much,"said John Liu, who manages NT$1.6 billion in stocks at Shinkong Investment Trust Co (新光投信). "We still haven't seen the worst for the flat-panel makers," he said.
Chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
TSMC chairman Morris Chang (
Last month Chang predicted a "clear recovery" from the second quarter.
Macronix International Co (
Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (
Chunghwa is lowering its holding in the China unit, in which it now owns a 78.2 percent stake, to prepare it for a listing in China. Chunghwa plans the listing for the end of next year, a Chinese-language newspaper reported.
Fubon Financial Holding Co (
Pacific Electric Wire & Cable Co (
Financials remained relatively weak, with investors still cautious ahead of a decision from the government over who will be named as the fourth finance minister to serve under President Chen Shui-bian's (
First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) ended down 1.3 percent at NT$22.4, while International Commercial Bank of China (中國商銀) was 0.5 percent lower at NT$21.4.
Chang Hwa Bank (
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts