South Korean stocks rose this week after US forces moved into Baghdad, boosting optimism a swift victory over Iraq will help the global economy. Exporters such as Samsung Electronics Co and Hyundai Motor Co gained.
The KOSPI index climbed 4.5 percent for the week, the best performing index in the region. LG Card Co and Kookmin Bank advanced after a financial regulator report showed a drop in overdue credit-card payments and lenders bought bonds from credit-card companies.
Japan's stock benchmarks declined for a second week. Shares of some of the nation's largest companies such as Toyota Motor Corp slid on concern that companies rushing to return part of their pension funds to the government are pushing prices lower.
The Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 3.2 percent this week, with the Nikkei closing at its fourth 20-year low since the beginning of March. The benchmark rounded off its worst week in 10. The TOPIX lost 1.7 percent.
Indexes in Hong Kong and Singapore declined for the week, led by Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd and Singapore Airlines Ltd, Ltd, after a deadly flu-like disease forced both carriers to cut flights because of a decline in travel.
Samsung Electronics, which generates about a fifth of its sales in the US, was the biggest boost to the Kospi. The stock added 0.5 percent to 285,000 won this week. Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea's largest automaker, jumped 7.5 percent to 26,550 won, becoming the fifth-largest contributor to the index's gain.
LG Card Co and Kookmin Bank advanced after a financial regulator report showed a drop in overdue credit-card payments and lenders bought bonds from credit-card companies.
Kookmin Bank, the largest shareholder of Kookmin Credit Card Co, gained 4.1 percent to 1,300 won.
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
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
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],”
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