Taiwan's key stock index had its biggest gain in seven months after a second opposition politician headed for China, the nation's biggest trading partner, in an attempt to mend ties.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (
The bottom for relations between China and Taiwan "may have passed and the ground has been laid for improved communication," Dickson Ho (何資文), head of research at Morgan Stanley in Taipei, wrote in a note dated yesterday. "We expect the market to react favorably to any positive developments on the political front."
The TAIEX jumped 123.82, or 2.1 percent, to 5,927.50, its biggest gain since Oct. 4.
More than five stocks advanced for every one that declined.
Futures due this month added 1.7 percent to 5,902.
Hon Hai Precision, the nation's largest electronics company by sales and which counts China as a manufacturing base, rose 2.5 percent to NT$144.50. Quanta Computer Inc (
EVA Airways, the nation's second-biggest airline, added 1.3 percent to NT$15.20. China Airlines (
"Tensions will soon be a thing of the past," said Phil Chen, who helps manage the equivalent of US$1.9 billion at Grand Cathay Securities Investment Trust Co (
Morgan Stanley Capital International Inc announced last June it will raise the weighting of Taiwan's stocks in global indexes to 100 percent from 75 percent on May 31. Investors may buy about US$4 billion of the nation's equities to track the benchmarks, analysts and investors said at the time.
"The timing is perfect for Taiwan stocks. We are seeing investors in Asian markets shifting investment to the island ahead of the MSCI index rebalance this month," said Jerry Chen, a fund manager at Taipei-based First Global Investment Trust Co (元大投信).
Overseas institutional investors bought a net NT$10.64 billion worth of shares on Thursday.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts