Stocks rose for the first day in three yesterday. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (
The TAIEX added 40.64, or 0.8 percent, to 5,255.24. Index futures expiring this month rose 0.3 percent to 5,265. About twice as many stocks gained as declined.
About 3.1 billion shares changed hands, 29 percent below the average daily trading in the past three months. The value of trading was NT$73 billion (US$2 billion), 24 percent below the three-month daily average.
Chen, who spoke Monday after the market closed, said next year's pace of growth will be faster than the government's 2.89 percent forecast for this year. The economy grew 3.54 percent last year.
"The Chen administration is determined to prop up the economy, so we can expect heavy government spending in the following months leading up to the election," said Mike Shiao, who manages the US$12 million Taiwan Select Growth Fund at Invesco Taiwan Ltd (景順投信), in Taipei.
His fund has gained 25 percent in the past three months, while the TAIEX has risen 23 percent.
Hon Hai, the nation's largest electronic maker, rose NT$3, or 2.5 percent, to NT$125.50.
Acer rose NT$0.80, or 1.7 percent, to NT$48.10.
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