Stocks rose, with the TAIEX advancing to a 13-month high yesterday. Exporters such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) gained after a US report on factory orders for durable goods buoyed optimism of accelerating economic growth in the world's largest economy.
The TAIEX gained 57.05, or 1.1 percent, to 5,451.80, the highest since June 21 last year. August futures on the benchmark added 1.7 percent to 5,475. About two stocks gained for every one that declined.
About 6 billion shares changed hands, 39 percent above the average trading in the past three months. The value of trading was NT$146.7 billion (US$4.3 billion), 61 percent above the three-month daily average.
"More and more evidence is pointing to a healthy economic recovery in the US," said Eddie Chiu, who manages the equivalent of US$116 million for First Global Investment Trust Co's (元大投信) Hitech Fund.
"Export-oriented economies like Taiwan will benefit the most in the US recovery," he said.
Chiu's fund has gained 26 percent this year, compared with a 21 percent gain for the benchmark index. Chiu expects the TAIEX to reach 6,000 in the second half.
Taiwan Semiconductor, the world's largest maker of computer chips on a subcontracting basis that relies on the US for three- quarters of its sales, gained NT$1, or 1.8 percent, to NT$58.
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) gained NT$0.20, or 0.8 percent, to NT$25.
Other exporters also gained. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (UMC,
China Development Financial Holding Corp (
China Development said the new profit forecast reflects its plans to set aside NT$16.9 billion to write off bad loans in the second half of this year. China Development in January forecast a pretax profit of NT$10.08 billion for the year.
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) gained NT$1, or 1.9 percent, to NT$52.50. The government on Friday sold an additional 1.5 percent stake in Chunghwa following a share sale in the US on July 18.
The government sold 14.5 million Chunghwa Telecom shares in the form of American depositary receipts for US$14.24 per share. Ten of the common shares are bundled as one ADR.
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) rose NT$0.30, or 0.7 percent, to NT$42.70. Cathay Financial on Friday said second-quarter income surged more than 13-fold following its acquisition of Taiwan's 11th-biggest bank by assets. Profit rose to NT$6.5 billion from NT$486 million in the year-earlier quarter.
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