Stocks gained yesterday, led by companies being added to the Morgan Stanley Capital Interna-tional Emerging Markets Index such as Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), Quanta Display Inc (廣輝電子) and Shin Kong Financial Holdings Co (新光金控).
The TAIEX added 72.43, or 1.2 percent, to 5,958.79. About 10 stocks gained for every one that fell. Taiex futures due in May rose 1.4 percent to 5,942.
"The MSCI decision is a much needed boost to investor confidence," said Tracy Chen, a fund manager at Prudential Securities Investment Trust Co (
It's "good news at last after talks about interest rate hikes and China's economic cool down," she said.
Chi Mei Optoelectronics rose 5.5 percent to NT$67.50. Shin Kong Financial rose 1.5 percent to NT$27.70. Quanta Display rose 5.3 percent to NT$25.70.
Taiwanese companies account for 11 of the stocks joining MSCI indexes, the second biggest in Asia. The changes take effect at the close of trading May 28, MSCI said in announcing its annual review of the indexes' members.
Dealers said the positive lead from Wall Street overnight and MSCI's announcement enabled the market to extend its technical bounce. However, profit-taking and stop-loss selling emerged in late trade to cap the early gains, they said.
"It was simply a technical rebound," said Michael Hsu (許派一), an assistant vice president with Jih Sun Securities Investment Consulting Co (日盛投顧).
"Those stocks which suffered a significant correction previously led the recovery Wednesday, while some bellwether electronics lost steam given [fragile] market confidence," he said.
AI SPLURGE: The four major US tech companies have lost more than US$950 billion in value since releasing earnings and outlooks, while equipment makers were gaining Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that would reach about US$650 billion this year — a flood of cash earmarked for new data centers and all the gear within them. The spending planned by Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp, all in pursuit of dominance in the still-nascent market for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is a boom without a parallel this century. Each of the companies’ estimates for this year is expected either near or surpass their budgets for the past three years combined. They would set a high-watermark for capital spending
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Bank of America Corp nearly doubled its forecast for the nation’s economic growth this year, adding to a slew of upgrades even after a rip-roaring last year propelled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI). The firm lifted its projection to 8 percent from 4.5 percent on “relentless global demand” for the hardware that Taiwanese companies make, according to a note dated yesterday by analysts including Xiaoqing Pi (皮曉青). Taiwan’s GDP expanded 8.63 percent last year, the fastest pace since 2010. The increase “reflects our sustained optimism over Taiwan’s technology driven expansion and is reinforced by several recent developments,” including a more stable currency,
COLLABORATION: Taiwan and the US could jointly find solutions to weaknesses in supply chain resilience for critical materials, focusing on mining and initial refinement Taiwan is likely to purchase rare earths from the US in the future, and is also in talks with Australia and Canada to strengthen global rare earth supply chain security, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. Taiwan and the US last month concluded the sixth Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, during which both sides signed a joint statement endorsing the principles of the Pax Silica Declaration, pledging to deepen cooperation in areas including critical minerals. At the time, Kung said the two sides would establish working groups to advance cooperation in areas including artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, critical materials and
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