■ Technical rebound boosts TAIEX
Shares edged higher in a technical rebound yesterday following five consecutive sessions of declines, though investors remained cautious ahead of second-quarter corporate earnings results from US and local companies.
The TAIEX rose 27.51 points, or 0.4 percent, to 6,285.31.
"Investors weren't interested in chasing prices higher because there are still uncertainties over second-quarter corporate earnings, and high oil prices have clouded the global economic outlook," KGI Securities (中信證券) trader Bill Huang said.
Memory chip makers rose on hopes they will sell more chips in the third quarter, a typically busy season for the PC industry.
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) advanced 3.5 percent to NT$20.70, and over-the-counter-traded Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) gained 2.9 percent to NT$21.25.
There were 656 gainers, 304 decliners, and 123 stocks closed unchanged.
■ HTC's Tokyo branch opens
High Tech Computer Corp (HTC, 宏達電), the world's biggest maker of cellphones running Microsoft Corp's system, opened a branch in Tokyo yesterday.
HTC is scheduled to start supplying Japan's biggest mobile phone carrier, NTT DoCoMo Inc, later this month after scoring success in supplying European and US telecom operators in recent years.
Chief executive Peter Chou (周永明) that the cooperation with DoCoMo was a first step, and his company hoped to explore all kinds of cooperative deals in the future.
HTC also has overseas branch offices in London and Los Angeles and a factory in Suzhou, China.
■ REITs gain popularity
REITs have become one of the most popular investment tools in Taiwan, as all five local REITs have been oversubscribed, Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評), the local arm of Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, said in a report released yesterday.
So far, the five REITs -- Fubon No. 1 and No. 2, Cathay No. 1, Shin Kong No. 1 and Trident -- have raised a total of NT$41.9 billion (US$1.27 billion), according to the report.
Taiwan Ratings said its top pick is Shin Kong No.1 REIT, which include the Shinkong Jasper Tienmu building Tainan Shinkong Mitsukoshi building and two office buildings rented by high-income tenants.
But rising interest rates and declining rental yields may weaken demand for REITs, it said.
■ SSAC hails light jet flight
Sino Swearingen Aircraft Corp (SSAC), a Taiwanese-US aircraft maker, announced yesterday that its SJ30 light jet had made the first non-stop cross-Atlantic flight by a light jet.
Monitored by officials from the National Aeronautic Association, the SJ30 first flew from San Antonio, Texas to Goose Bay, Canada last Saturday. After a quick refueling stop, the jet then flew non-stop from Goose Bay to the Farnborough air show in England, a company statement said.
The plane flew a total a total of 8,519.2km, and the total flight time was 10 hours and 24 minutes, the company said.
SSAC was reportly seeking fund from Taiwan last month because of financial difficulties.
But the company said in its statement yesterday that its operations were normal and it expected to receive a loan of up to US$150 million from the Wachovia Corp soon.
■ NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against its US counterpart yesterday, declining NT$0.006 to close at NT$32.866 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$932 million.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts