Share prices closed 0.2 percent lower in thin trade yesterday, unable to extend recent gains on a lack of fresh leads and caution ahead of upcoming corporate results, dealers said.
They said the market continues to trade in a narrow range within sight of the key 6,000 points level which it has repeatedly tested but not convincingly broken for months.
The TAIEX closed down 11.70 points at 5,933.57, on turnover of NT$44.53 billion (US$1.39 billion).
Decliners led gainers 497 to 217, with 193 stocks unchanged.
"There were no fundamental leads to encourage investors to conduct any aggressive moves," said Samson Chueh (闕山雄), an assistant vice president at Fuhwa Securities Co (復華證券).
"Investors were reluctant to build positions as they remained cautious before the disclosure of corporate earnings," he said.
Many major firms are scheduled to report their earnings for last year soon at quarterly briefings.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was up NT$0.20 at NT$49.10. TSMC is scheduled to hold an investor conference tomorrow. Rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) steady at NT$19.40 while Macronix International (旺宏) down NT$0.30 at NT$6.30.
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) closed up NT$0.20 at NT$40.90 on a report that it aims to more than double its sales of panels for LCD TV sets this year to 4.5 million.
Yulon Motor Co (裕隆) added NT$0.70 to NT$38.50 after it announced a "conservative" pretax profit forecast for this year of NT$5.0 billion, compared with NT$6.12 billion last year.
AI SPLURGE: The four major US tech companies have lost more than US$950 billion in value since releasing earnings and outlooks, while equipment makers were gaining Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that would reach about US$650 billion this year — a flood of cash earmarked for new data centers and all the gear within them. The spending planned by Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp, all in pursuit of dominance in the still-nascent market for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is a boom without a parallel this century. Each of the companies’ estimates for this year is expected either near or surpass their budgets for the past three years combined. They would set a high-watermark for capital spending
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Bank of America Corp nearly doubled its forecast for the nation’s economic growth this year, adding to a slew of upgrades even after a rip-roaring last year propelled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI). The firm lifted its projection to 8 percent from 4.5 percent on “relentless global demand” for the hardware that Taiwanese companies make, according to a note dated yesterday by analysts including Xiaoqing Pi (皮曉青). Taiwan’s GDP expanded 8.63 percent last year, the fastest pace since 2010. The increase “reflects our sustained optimism over Taiwan’s technology driven expansion and is reinforced by several recent developments,” including a more stable currency,
COLLABORATION: Taiwan and the US could jointly find solutions to weaknesses in supply chain resilience for critical materials, focusing on mining and initial refinement Taiwan is likely to purchase rare earths from the US in the future, and is also in talks with Australia and Canada to strengthen global rare earth supply chain security, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. Taiwan and the US last month concluded the sixth Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, during which both sides signed a joint statement endorsing the principles of the Pax Silica Declaration, pledging to deepen cooperation in areas including critical minerals. At the time, Kung said the two sides would establish working groups to advance cooperation in areas including artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, critical materials and
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