■ Shares slightly up
Share prices closed up 0.55 percent yesterday as political concerns offset an early rally driven by Wall Street's overnight gains amid tame US inflation data, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed up 36.83 points at 6,733.46, on turnover of NT$118.86 billion (US$3.63 billion).
"Large-cap stocks managed further gains, suggesting increased interest from foreign investors amid a firming local currency," said Samson Chueh, an assistant vice president with Fuhwa Securities Corp (復華證券).
While bellwether technology stocks followed the direction set by their counterparts in the US, some sectors which had been lagging behind the broader market, such as tourism, staged a recovery, he said.
Decliners outnumbered gainers 518 to 507, with 129 stocks unchanged.
■ CPC hikes gas price
State-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油) announced yesterday that it would hike the prices of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by an average of 15 percent due to rising import costs, effective today.
After the adjustment, industrial natural gas will be NT$13.0366 per cubic meter for mixed LNG mixed, including CPC's product and an imported one, or NT$14.5014 for imported LNG, according to a company statement.
The prices for LNG retailers are NT$12.15 and NT$13.52 per cubic meter. LNG for cogeneration will be NT$12.0980 NT$13.4573 per cubic meter. Prices of LNG for generating electricity range from NT$11.1719 to NT$13.0339 per cubic meter, depending on the season, according to CPC.
■ Lenovo poaches Dell staff
Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), the world's third-largest manufacturer of personal computers, hired two executives from Dell Inc to head the company's operations in Asia and Japan.
David Miller, who headed the China business of Dell, the world's largest PC maker, was named president of Lenovo Asia, the Chinese company said yesterday in a statement. Sotaro Amano, former corporate director of Japan sales for Dell, will be president of Lenovo Japan Ltd.
■ Customs seizes fake goods
Customs agents have seized counterfeit fashion items and pirated video games in recent months worth a combined NT$20 million, a spokesman for the Taipei Customs Bureau under the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
According to the spokesman, customs agents seized 1,713 items of fake brand-name products, including leather goods, sunglasses and clothes since customs agents began stepping up inspections of international express delivery packages in June. The pirated products had a market value of NT$11 million, he said.
A total of 6,800 fake Sony video game disks were nabbed by Taipei Customs Bureau agents on Monday -- the second seizure of its kind after 1,626 bootleg X-Box video game disks were seized, the spokesman said, noting that the two seizures were worth more than NT$10 million.
■ Biometric USB drive launched
SanDisk Corp yesterday launched SanDisk Cruzer Profile, a portable, high-speed USB flash drive with finger identification technology embedded in the device to ensure data security to local users, a company statement said.
Through a built-in biometric fingerprint scanner, data stored in the product can be accessed with the swipe of fingerprints of designated users, the statement said.
■ NT remains firm
The New Taiwan dollar maintained strength against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.122 to close at NT$32.627 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$967 million.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
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