Shares ended sharply higher yesterday, boosted by news of rising Japanese demand for flat panels and tracking overnight gains in US technology issues, analysts said.
The TAIEX finished up 97.92 points, or 1.7 percent, at 5,839.44, in dealings valued at NT$76.81 billion (US$2.27 billion).
Advancers well outnumbered decliners 446 to 283, while 205 issues ended the day unchanged.
Chip giants led gains. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (
Japan also played a part in the rise of some of the best performing stocks yesterday, analysts said. Japanese sales of liquid-crystal-display televisions surpassed that of traditional cathode ray tubes for the first time last year, a local report said. LCD and plasma TV sales grew 60 percent last year, while CRT sales shrank 25 percent, the report said.
"Panel stocks were stronger than expected today as traders got news of Japan's LCD demand," said Diana Wu, an analyst at Capital Securities Co (
Panel supplier Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (
Larger rival AU Optronics Corp (
However, memory chip makers were relatively weaker due to concerns that manufacturers plan to improve production technology and increase supply this month, Wu said.
"Investors are worried that the transition may not be smooth," she said.
ProMOS Technologies Ltd (
Wu said the bourse has a shot at testing 5,900 today if the US Federal Reserve raises interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, and if it says further rate hikes will be very gradual.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained