Shares ended lower yesterday on renewed worries about terror threats in the US as well as rising oil prices, analysts said.
The TAIEX closed down 70.17 points, or 1.3 percent, at 5,350.40. Decliners well outnumbered gainers 624 to 91 with 200 stocks unchanged. Turnover totaled NT$41.75 billion (US$1.22 billion).
"Most investors preferred to stay on the sidelines as concerns grew over terror attacks in the US," said Hsiuli Lee, a manager at Franklin Templeton First Taiwan. Lee said further gains in oil prices hurt sentiment. In New York trading on Friday, crude oil futures rose more than US$1 to an all-time high of US$43.85 a barrel.
Electronics shares fell 1.7 percent as a whole, led by chip and flat panel stocks.
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world's third-largest flat panel maker, tumbled 5.3 percent to NT$37.50, while Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) slumped 6.8 percent to NT$42.50.
"Many retail investors were forced to bail out their long positions on panel stocks due to margin calls," Lee said.
Lingering concerns over weak demand and lower product prices also weighed on memory chip shares. Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (
The plunge in memory chip stocks spilled over into other chip issues. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world's largest contract chipmaker, slipped 0.2 percent to NT$42.80. Rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) ended 0.9 percent lower at NT$21.50.
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