Shares ended at a near three-month high yesterday, led by optical-memory-disk makers.
The TAIEX rose 29.62 points, or 0.5 percent, to 6,137.57, its highest closing level since finishing at 6,155.51 on March 14. A total of 546 stocks gained, 328 fell and 126 remained unchanged.
"Given declines in US shares Friday and big rallies here recently, the market's performance today was a pleasant surprise," Ta Ching Securities Co (
Among the day's biggest gainers were optical-memory-disk makers, spurred by talks that prices of digital video discs will be raised in the third quarter. Ritek Corp (
Shares for thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal-display stocks performed poorly on continuing concerns over panel prices due to oversupply. AU Optronics Corp (
Chip-related stocks mostly gained, following a Chinese-language newspaper report that cited research firm IC Insights as saying the global chip industry's production value could rise 4 percent on year in 2005, compared with its previous estimate of a 2 percent decline.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (
Construction shares leapt 5.6 percent and tourism stocks rose 3.5 percent on expectations that Chinese tourists would flock to Taiwan. China has offered to allow more of its people to visit Taiwan, but there has been no progress on the plan so far.
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained