As concerns over interest rate hikes in the international arena have temporarily eased, domestic investor sentiment this month bounced back from the previous low level, a survey released by JF Asset Management Taiwan said yesterday.
The survey came as the benchmark TAIEX climbed 67.98 points, or 0.95 percent, to 7,204.04 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, reaching its highest level since May 12. Turnover was NT$109.71 billion (US$3.34 billion ), according to stock exchange statistics.
This month, the JF Asset's confidence index climbed to 99.5 points, up from 88.6 recorded in September, the lowest level in more than two years, the bimonthly survey showed.
An index figure of less than 100 points indicates respondents are pessimistic, while a score over 100 indicates optimism.
The six sub-indices used in the JF Asset survey -- the nation's stock market, the domestic economy, Taiwan's political environment and cross-strait relations, the nation's investment environment, the international economy and the likelihood of profit-making in investment portfolios during the next six months -- all showed increases from the previous report.
Respondents continued to express optimism about the global economy, which scored 130.6, the highest score since the survey started in July 2004.
Despite the upswing, consumers are still worried about inflationary risk as 74.7 percent said commodity prices would rise in the next six months and 49.2 percent anticipated housing prices would continue to go up in the near future, the report said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to