Stocks fell yesterday. China Steel Corp (中鋼) dropped on a report a state-run labor retirement fund plans to sell 80 million of its shares, or 0.9 percent of the company.
The retirement fund will start selling China Steel shares today, the company said in a statement to the exchange.
The TAIEX fell 109.34, or 2 percent, to 5,342.46. About six stocks declined for every one that gained. August futures on the benchmark fell 2.2 percent to 5,355.
About 4.6 billion shares changed hands, 6 percent above the average trading in the past three months. The value of trading was NT$103.4 billion, 13 percent above the three-month daily average.
The index has rallied 29 percent in the past three months, since reaching a six-month low in April.
"An increasing number of investors are selling stocks into the current rally," said Simon Chao (趙永宏), who manages US$17 million at President Investment Trust Corp (統一投信).
"Some disappointing profit reports are making investors more keen to cut their holdings," he said.
China Steel fell NT$1.70, or 6.5 percent, to NT$24.30.
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the nation's largest maker of memory chips for electronic games, fell NT$0.55, or 6.1 percent, to NT$8.45. The company reported after the market closed Monday a loss of NT$3 billion (US$87 million) in the three months ended June 30, its seventh straight unprofitable quarter. The second-quarter loss narrowed from NT$4.5 billion the same quarter a year earlier because of better cost controls, the company said.
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) fell NT$2.90, or 6.8 percent, to NT$39.80 after a Chinese-language newspaper reported that it will offer a 5 percent discount on as much as US$1 billion of shares it's selling to overseas investors.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world's No. 1 supplier of made-to-order semiconductors, closed down NT$1.00 at NT$57. Its 1.64 billion new shares are due to start trading tomorrow.
United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) fell NT$0.10, or 0.4 percent, to NT$24.90, ahead of its second quarter earnings report due today. The company is scheduled to make available 665.90 million new shares for trading on Aug. 8.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by