Stocks fell yesterday, taking the benchmark index to its fourth weekly slide in six, as oil prices surged to a record.
A technical bounce back pushed the index higher mid-morning, but with investors jittery over oil prices and weak global markets, profit-taking soon emerged to pull the market lower, the dealers said.
Firms testing and packaging integrated circuits gained, but wafer foundries and some thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display panel makers were weaker, dragging the broader electronics sector lower.
The TAIEX shed 28.45, or 0.5 percent, to 5,399.16. About three shares fell for every two that rose. The index futures for August lost 0.6 percent to 5,369. The TAIEX fell 0.4 percent this week.
The weighted index lost 21.41 points, or 0.39 percent, over the week until today. Last week the index rose by 0.83 percent.
"Investors are reluctant to build new positions or hold shares for long due to uncertainties over surging oil prices," said Alan Tseng, an assistant manager at Capital Securities Corp (
A strong rebound was unlikely unless crude oil costs stabilized and foreign funds returned to the bourse, Tseng said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (台積電) lost 2.2 percent to NT$44, while rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) fell 2.7 percent to NT$22.
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the nation's largest flat-panel maker, fell 2.4 percent to NT$40.2 due to a bleak outlook for panel prices and demand in the coming months, while rival Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) rose 2.9 percent to NT$42.10 after it reported a record profit on Thursday for the second quarter.
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), the nation's sixth-biggest financial services company, added 0.3 percent to NT$34.30. It said second-quarter net income fell 11.6 percent to NT$3.43 billion, from NT$3.88 billion a year earlier because of losses from stock trading.
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