Shares closed more than 100 points higher yesterday on strong foreign investor buying, but no clear picture emerged for the stock market's likely movement today, as analysts remain concerned over post-election uncertainty in the US.
The benchmark TAIEX gained 103.24 points, or 1.79 percent, to close at 5,862.85. The market opened flat and closed at the highest point, with US President George W. Bush's leading his Democratic counterpart, Senator John Kerry.
PHOTO: CHEN TSEH-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
"If Wall Street is jittery over the hotly-contested election, then Taiwan's stock market is likely to be impacted," said Stanley Yeh (
Foreign institutional investors yesterday bought a net NT$13.93 billion worth of Taiwan stocks, in anticipation of a proposed weighting-increase of Taiwan shares by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) by the end of the month.
The MSCI effect can be seen in the heavily-weighted electronics sector, which attracted buying from foreign investors and was up 3.02 percent yesterday, said Dave Chou (周顯黎), another analyst at Yuanta Core Pacific Securities.
Oil prices, Taiwan's year-end legislative elections and the verdict today on a lawsuit filed by opposition parties to suspend Chen Shui-bian's (
By and large, who is in the White House has little impact on local bourse and US-Taiwan trade prospects, Chou said.
As for how the US Presidential election results are going to affect Taiwan's economy, George Lin (
But Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (
The minister further predicted that once the new US president officially assumes office, Taiwan-US economic and trade relations will improve. Taiwan is the eighth-largest trading partner of the US.
Wang Chun-jieh (
But he added that if Bush wins a second term, the two countries will be more likely to re-open the TIFA talks based on the existing model.
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
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San