Stocks closed up 0.35 percent yesterday but were off the highs as investors opted to lock in quick profits following an early rally made on Wall Street's overnight gains, dealers said.
They said the market opened strongly, with confidence getting a further boost from more positive US economic data but could not make that much ground given some concerns over the electronics sector outlook.
The TAIEX closed up 21.54 points at 6,108.99 to an 18-month high, on turnover of NT$115.32 billion (US$3.39 billion). The futures index shed 0.3 percent to 6130.
Risers led decliners 397 to 350, with 167 stocks unchanged. A total of 38 stocks closed limit-up and seven limit-down.
The market failed to hold most of its early gains as investors remained reluctant to push the upside much further for bellwether electronics, Teng Ke-hsin (鄧可欣), an analyst at SinoPac Securities Corp (建華證券), said yesterday.
"It is clear that few want to buy into electronics ... no matter how exciting technology shares might appear on NASDAQ," Teng said. "While there are valuation concerns to think about, it simply remains too early to talk about industry visibility for 2004."
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day