Stocks rose to a one-month high yesterday, led by surging chip makers and packagers.
The TAIEX rose 46.79 points, or 0.71 percent, to 6,660.76, its highest close since Feb. 20 when the index finished at 6,686.55.
It also gained for a seventh day, heading for its longest winning stretch in more than four years.
"It appears that investor sentiment for upstream semiconductor-related shares has been strong," said Shawn Wang, a trader at Fubon Securities (
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world's second-largest contract chipmaker by revenue, gained 3.2 percent at NT$21.15, on hopes the utilization of its factories this year may be better than the market previously expected, the trader said.
The market now expects the company's factory utilization to reach 80 percent from around 70 percent last year, analysts said.
Larger rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (
But Alan Tseng (
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (
"The company's revenue is likely to grow in the second quarter from the first on strong demand for chip testing in communications devices, more than previously expected," said Andrew Chen, an analyst at Yuanta Core Pacific Securities (
Siliconware Precision Industries Co (
Chip packagers may raise prices by as much as 10 percent in June, the Chinese-language Commercial Times said, without saying how it got the information.
Electronics companies rose 1.1 percent overall, but the steel sector surged 3 percent, outperforming other sectors, partly on expectations of a 10 percent rise in iron ore prices this year.
China Steel Corp (
Steel wire makers such as Feng Hsin Iron & Steel Co (豐興鋼鐵) and Wei Chih Steel Industrial Co (威致鋼鐵) may raise prices as strong demand has started to cause shortages in some products, the Economic Daily News, a Chinese-language daily reported, citing an unidentified steel distributor. Feng Hsin rose 6 percent to NT$30.85. Wei Chih advanced 5.1 percent to NT$4.73.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by