Share prices closed up 0.38 percent yesterday but were off intraday highs as profit-taking capped a technical rebound after Wall Street's steadier performance overnight, dealers said.
They said there was some hope the government might ease its hardline China policies after President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), under pressure from his family's alleged involvement in a series of scandals, agreed to give up some of his powers.
The TAIEX was up 25.89 points at 6,872.84, on turnover of NT$91.66 billion (US$2.86 billion).
Risers led decliners 399 to 380, with 101 stocks unchanged.
The tourism sector was up 2.47 percent on fresh hopes that under a more conciliatory policy towards Beijing, more Chinese visitors would be allowed to come to Taiwan.
"The far-from-exciting rebound points to still cautious sentiment given the ongoing correction in the emerging markets, Taiwan included," said Oliver Fang, a Yuanta Core Pacific Securities (
Despite Wall Street's moderate gains overnight, investors remain wary about further volatility going forward, he said.
"[President] Chen's latest move did not have a larger impact on the bourse as most people took it with a grain of salt," he said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (
On the Taipei foreign exchange market, the New Taiwan dollar was at NT$32.11 against the US dollar, down NT$0.091 from 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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained