Share prices closed 0.39 percent lower yesterday, reversing early gains led by Wall Street's rally on Friday as local investors focused on the possibility the US economy, a key market, could slow sharply, dealers said.
They said news that second quarter US economic growth fell to 2.5 percent from 5.6 percent in the first raised concerns about possibly weaker US demand, an unwelcome prospect for Taiwan.
Wall Street rallied last Friday on the data because US investors judged that it made further US rate hikes much less likely but this view could only drive initial knee-jerk gains here, a pattern seen in other Asian markets.
The weighted index fell 25.49 points at 6,454.58, off a high of 6,531.11 and a low of 6,428.26, on turnover of NT$72.63 billion (US$2.21 billion).
"There was a growing reluctance among investors to push the upside too far beyond 6,500 points," said Oliver Fang, a Yuanta Core Pacific Securities (元大京華證券) assistant vice president who serves mainly foreign investors.
In particular, foreign investors remained cautious about the earnings outlook for local technology bellwethers in the remainder of the year, he said.
This was understandable, given that companies such as Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
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RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the