Share prices rose 0.57 percent yesterday as late bargain-hunting offset earlier falls driven by Wall Street's overnight decline amid continued concerns over high interest rates, dealers said.
Foreign investors have started building new positions after several days of selling, pushing the composite index sharply lower, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 40.12 points at 7,074.15, on turnover of NT$106.42 billion (US$3.33 billion). Risers led decliners 446 to 355.
"Investors were willing to hunt for bargains after a recent correction of more than 400 points [on the index]," said Johnny Lee, a manager with President Securities Co (統一證券).
The steel sector rallied on expectations of firmer product prices for the third quarter, Lee said, with some major Asian steelmakers set to unveil their products quotations next week.
The financial stocks gained strength after a report that Taiwan Fire Marine Insurance Co (台灣產險) had secured China's regulatory approval to set up a representative office in Shanghai.
"Such a report re-ignited hopes for further relaxation [of the regulations] for Taiwanese financial firms' presence on the mainland following recent stalled relations across the Taiwan Strait," Lee said.
Taiwan Fire Marine Insurance advanced NT$0.35 to NT$19.60.
AU Optronics Corp (
Both Cando, a unit of AU Optronics, and Allied Material said they had no immediate such plans.
Allied Material was limit-up NT$0.69 at NT$10.60.
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