Share prices closed 0.66 percent lower yesterday amid fears of waning foreign interest after a recent buying spree ahead of Morgan Stanley Capital International Inc's (MSCI) reweighting in local shares, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed down 39.94 points at 5,971.62, on turnover of NT$79.25 billion (US$2.53 billion), compared with NT$74.11 billion on Tuesday.
Risers led decliners 472 to 379, with 159 stocks unchanged.
A total of 38 stocks closed limit-up and 16 limit-down.
MSCI's changes came into effect after the market closed on Tuesday.
Tourism and transportation stocks outperformed on expectations that they will benefit from an influx of sightseers from China, while construction shares gained ground on the legislature's approval of extraordinary infrastructure spending of NT$90.40 billion for this year.
"Concern that foreign investors might become more cautious about buying shares or even turn net sellers certainly explained the market weakness, particularly among bellwether electronics," said Daniel Tseng (曾建詮), a manager at Fubon Securities Investment Services Co (
But it remains to be seen whether that will actually happen, he said.
All in all, Tseng said he does not expect a decisive sell-off by foreign investors so long as Wall Street keeps up a largely positive tone in the near term.
As such, domestic investors are likely to start buying aggressively again soon enough once the uncertainty over the stance of foreign investors is out of the way, he added.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to