Stocks fall for fourth day
Shares fell for the fourth straight session yesterday, dragged down by concerns about record high oil prices, declines on Wall Street overnight and selling pressure from institutional investors.
The TAIEX fell 9.45 points, or 0.2 percent, to 6,212.60, on turnover of NT$76.08 billion (US$2.37 billion).
"There's a general lack of confidence for the market in the short-term, stemming partly from high oil prices," said Andrew Teng (鄧安瀾), sales manager at Taiwan International Securities (金鼎證券).
Domestic institutional investors are mostly selling stocks to lock in profits after a 500-point rise in the benchmark index over the past three months, Teng said.
"Selling pressure is expected," he said.
The drop in US financial markets Wednesday also hurt sentiment.
The US dollar has appreciated 1.6 percent against the New Taiwan Dollar since June 29. That is causing investors to pull out of the local market, said Derek Lam, a senior trader of Fubon Securities (富邦證券).
Chunghwa files for share sale
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation's biggest telephone-service provider, filed with US regulators to sell as much as US$2.8 billion in shares, moving the government closer to a goal of taking the company private.
As many as 1.29 billion shares would be sold in the form of American depositary shares, Chunghwa said yesterday in the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. That represents about a 13 percent stake, according to the filing. Each ADR represents 10 common shares of Chunghwa.
Chunghwa will be able to "more rapidly and efficiently develop our business and respond to changing market conditions, as well as implement cost-saving reforms" should the sale be completed, letting the government meet a target of cutting its stake to less than 50 percent, according to the filing.
Taiwan Mobile's Q2 profit up
Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation's second-biggest mobile-phone operator by subscribers, had a 19 percent increase in second-quarter profit.
Net income rose to NT$4.29 billion (US$134 million) from NT$3.59 billion a year earlier. The figure was derived by subtracting three-month profit from first-half earnings the firm announced yesterday. The company said first-half profit slipped 0.6 percent from a year earlier to NT$8.2 billion.
Acer reports jump in sales
Acer Inc, Taiwan's third-largest computer maker by market value, said sales last month rose 51.6 percent from a year earlier to NT$14.9 billion (US$464 million).
Sales climbed from NT$9.85 billion in June last year, the company said yesterday in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Revenue rose from NT$14.6 billion in May.
Tax-break plan to be reviewed
The government will hold a cross-ministry meeting today to review a plan that gives five-year tax exemptions to providers of high-speed wireless Internet services for mobile phones, a Chinese-language newspaper reported citing the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
The meeting was called by the Cabinet's tax reform division, the newspaper said. The government drafted a proposal at the end of last year to include 3G services in its five-year tax-free category, according to the report.
The government is trying to increase tax revenue and balance the budget between five and 10 years as the deficit widens. It estimates the shortfall will increase to NT$337.3 billion (US$10.6 billion) this year, from an estimated NT$304 billion last year.
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
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