Share prices closed 0.18 percent lower yesterday as early gains gave way to profit-taking, with investors reluctant to push the upside further amid a lack of fresh leads, dealers said.
They said investors were at least relieved that weekend rallies by pro- and anti-government forces had passed off peacefully but concerns at President Chen Shui-bian's (
That was probably enough to keep the market in check, ensuring it missed out on the strong regional gains amid some speculation that foreign investors are betting on a correction back to 6,000 points.
The weighted index lost 12.05 points at 6,516.52, off a high of 6,569.53 and a low of 6,510.58, on turnover of NT$98.21 billion (US$3.03 billion).
"Our market should have staged some sort of upswing given the mostly bullish showing in the region but it didn't," SinoPac Securities (
"There was really no convincing lead in sight to justify a big decline but investors simply would not bring themselves to buy shares aggressively," he said.
Although individual investors seemed to have started buying again, foreign institutions apparently remained sellers, preventing the market from ending in positive territory, he said.
"We have heard some foreign investors talking about a possible correction to 6,000 points for local shares to become attractive again," he said.
"Maybe that is part of the reason for the market to behave the way it has lately -- going nowhere," Teng said.
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