Shares ended sharply higher for a fifth straight session yesterday, boosted by Wall Street's strength and a pullback in oil prices.
The TAIEX closed up 152.42 points, or 2.7 percent, at 5813.39, an eight-week high. The index's previous high was 5836.91 on July 1.
Advancers well outnumbered decliners 667 to 87 with 131 stocks unchanged. Turnover rose to NT$118.84 billion (US$3.5 billion).
On the foreign exchange market, the New Taiwan dollar fell NT$0.007 to close at NT$34.075 against the US dollar with a turnover of US$730 million.
Local financial markets had been closed the past two days for Typhoon Aere. Cement stocks were up on expectations that rebuilding in areas hit by the typhoon will spur demand for construction materials. Taiwan Cement Corp (
Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), Taiwan's largest DRAM chipmaker, rose by the 7 percent daily limit to NT$25, and peer Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) jumped 6.9 percent to NT$26.40, following a local newspaper report that spot prices for DRAM chips are expected to rise due to the typhoon.
"There were signs foreign institutional investors actively bought local tech heavyweights during the session," said Hsiuli Lee of Franklin Templeton First Taiwan.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to