Stocks fell yesterday, with steel, flat-panel display and transportation shares leading the decline.
The TAIEX closed down 15.74 points, or 0.26 percent, at 6,145.92, in dealings valued at NT$101.9 billion (US$3.26 billion).
Decliners outnumbered advancers 499 to 347, while 155 issues ended the day unchanged. The decline came after the benchmark index had risen 2.5 percent so far this month, analysts said.
Steel stocks fell 1.2 percent as a whole, after a Chinese-language newspaper said several steel makers will likely report losses this month and next, analysts said.
"Profit-taking was [the factor] behind the market failing to sustain early gains and being pulled down to negative territory towards the close," said Alvin Teng (鄧可欣), an assistant vice president at SinoPac Securities Corp (建華證券).
The expansion in market turnover suggests that quite a few investors may be "straddled with loss-making positions built earlier in the session," he said.
China Steel Corp (中鋼) fell 1.1 percent to NT$30.90, while Chien Shing Stainless Steel (千興) dropped 3.1 percent to NT$6.93.
Shares of thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal-display makers were mixed despite a strong opening, analysts said.
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), the nation's second largest panel maker, finished the session unchanged at NT$49.40, off its morning high of NT$51. AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) lost 0.2 percent to NT$52.10.
BenQ Corp (明基電通) was down 2.96 percent at NT$31.15, extending the decline of the previous day.
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