TAIEX dips on profit-taking
Stocks ended slightly lower yesterday, as some investors took profits following gains in the previous session.
The TAIEX closed down 12.69 points, or 0.21 percent, at 5,981.54. Decliners outnumbered advancers 595 to 220, while 166 issues ended unchanged.
Analysts said some investors believed the market's 1.9 percent rise on Monday was overdone. They said investors also were wary of taking positions ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The Taiwan Stock Exchange will be closed from Friday, with trading to resume on Feb. 14.
H-Share ceiling raised
Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission doubled the maximum amount that the nation's funds are allowed to invest in Hong Kong's H-shares and red chips to 10 percent of their assets, to give the funds more flexibility in overseas investments.
The commission made the change because the weightings of H-shares and red chips in the MSCI and FTSE indexes have changed, the regulator said in a statement on its Web site, without elaborating.
H-shares are China incorporated companies listed in Hong Kong. Red chips are China-backed companies incorporated in Hong Kong.
The commission said on Jan. 19 that it plans to attract more overseas companies to sell stock on the nation's exchange by improving listing guidelines in the next six months.
The move is part of a plan to double capital raising by foreign investors to NT$35 billion (US$1.1 billion) in 2008 from NT$17.5 billion at the end of 2003.
Chinatrust sets 2005 goal
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) is aiming to make NT$22 billion (US$693 million) in profit this year with an increased contribution from business in China, a local Chinese-language newspaper said, citing chairman Jeffrey Koo (辜濂松).
The nation's sixth-biggest financial services company yesterday posted profit of NT$15.4 billion for last year, citing unaudited figures.
The company may buy a stake in a Chinese rival if the government eases regulations, the newspaper reported.
Net income for last year fell short of Chinatrust's forecast of NT$17.2 billion, Chinatrust said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, without giving any reasons. Chinatrust posted earning per share of NT$2.60 for last year, it said.
Job openings increase
Each job seeker had an average of 1.7 work opportunities last year, up from 1.6 opportunities in 2003, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported on Monday.
According to DGBAS officials, companies registered about 897,000 jobs with the government's employment service agencies for the whole of last year, an increase of 24.4 percentage points over the 2003 level, for a total of 539,000 job seekers, a rise of 19.9 percent year to year.
Of all the nearly 540,000 job seekers, senior-high school graduates accounted for the largest portion of 228,000, while around 367,000 jobs out of the nearly 900,000 offered were provided for job seekers with a high school education, DGBAS statistics show.
At the same time, a total of 234,000 certificates were issued by the government to skilled workers last year, a passing rate of 57.1 percent, reflecting an annual rise of 2.2 percentage points.
NT dollar slips
The New Taiwan dollar traded lower against its US counterpart yesterday, declining NT$0.08 to NT$31.798 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$659 million.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”