■ Shares up 0.39 percent
Shares closed 0.39 percent higher yesterday, although profit-taking placed a lid on early gains inspired by the modest advance on Wall Street overnight, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed up 29.25 points at 7,474.19, on turnover of NT$125.01 billion (US$3.85 billion).
Decliners led advancers 657 to 528, with 191 stocks unchanged.
■ Formosa raises gas price
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation's second-biggest fuel supplier, raised gasoline and diesel prices for the first time in three weeks, matching a move by larger rival Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油).
Domestic wholesale gasoline prices increased NT$1.1 a liter, and those of diesel NT$1.2, effective 9am, Formosa Petrochemical said in a statement.
■ NT dollar up on stock purchases
The New Taiwan dollar climbed to a more than three-month high yesterday, as overseas investors boosted purchases of the nation's stocks, traders said.
The NT dollar rose NT$0.175 to close at NT$32.5 against the US dollar on the Taipei Forex Inc. Turnover was US$1.303 billion.
Commenting on the strengthening NT dollar, central bank governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said that the local unit was influenced by the broad decline in the US dollar and backed by continued foreign capital inflows for Taiwan's stocks.
Twelve of the 15 most actively traded Asia-Pacific currencies climbed also against the US dollar yesterday, spurred by gains in the yen after a report showed that Japanese industrial production had unexpectedly risen last month.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
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EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
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