Shares close lower
Shares ended lower yesterday after falls on Wall Street overnight and on profit-taking in the technology sector, analysts said.
The TAIEX closed 82.66 points, or 1.4 percent, lower at 6,060.46.
Dealings were valued at NT$58.34 billion (US$1.83 billion). Decliners well outnumbered advancers 639 to 116, while 122 issues ended the day unchanged.
Dealers said foreign investors, who have large holdings in the tech sector, led the sell-off, followed by domestic institutional investors in the afternoon.
One of the biggest tech decliners yesterday was Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), whose stocks ended 5.2 percent lower at NT$138.
Shares in Taiwan's airlines went against the trend to rise on renewed hopes of direct flights between selected cities in China and Taiwan during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Eva Airways Corp (長榮) rose 1.3 percent to NT$15.9, while China Airlines (華航) closed flat at NT$18.4.
Hon Hai declines to detail IPO
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Taiwan's largest electronics maker by sales, said details of the initial sale of shares in its mobile-phone unit, Foxconnwilson International Holdings (富士康), will be decided after the marketing effort is finished.
The company still needs to complete a marketing campaign to sell the shares, Hon Hai spokesman Edmund Ding (丁祈安) said in a telephone interview, responding to a Hong Kong Standard report that the initial offering would raise as much as HK$5 billion (US$642.8 million). No dollar amount has been set for the sale, Ding said.
The Lunar New Year holiday, which starts in the second week of next month, may impede plans for the sale, Ding said. He declined to comment on marketing plans for the handset unit.
The Hon Hai unit's shares may be sold in Hong Kong by the end of the month, the newspaper said. Foxconn plans to spend at least 60 percent of the proceeds of the sale to build five new plants, including one in Mexico and one in Hungary, the Standard said.
Tatung laptops in Wal-Mart
Tatung Co (大同) is selling laptop computers under its brand name for the first time in US outlets run by Wal-Mart Stores Inc, according to the world's largest discount retailer's Web site.
The Web site shows three Tatung laptop models for prices ranging from US$1,271 to US$998.
Tatung is trying to build its brand name in the US after gaining more recognition in the market from sales of its flat-panel televisions.
Tatung, Taiwan's fourth-largest electronics maker, on Dec. 23 cut its 2004 profit forecast after subsidiary Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) pared its outlook for net income, citing a decline in industry prices.
NT dollar closes slightly up
The New Taiwan dollar pared losses on speculation some exporters took advantage of a slide in the currency to convert their overseas earnings.
The local currency closed NT$0.001 higher to end at NT$31.846 against the US dollar in Taipei, after dropping as much as 0.2 percent to NT$31.912.
Turnover was US$604 million, down from US$838 million the previous day.
"It appears there were quite a lot of exporter purchases of NT dollars above NT$31.85 today," said Gary Huang, a currency trader in Taipei at Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行).
"Exporters believe that's an acceptable level" to buy the local currency, he said.
The NT dollar may trade between NT$31.70 and NT$32 this month, Huang said.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
RSS