With politics no longer a downside concern for the time being, the strengthening high-tech sector is expected to lead the soaring TAIEX to 10,000 points by the end of this year, UBS Securities Ltd said yesterday.
"We have been bullish about the market since the beginning of this year, banking on the low prices, healthy earnings growth, attractive dividend policy and more mergers and acquisition activities," Ken Chen (
The TAIEX closed down 73.44 points or 0.82 percent at 8,865.75 yesterday, retreating from a seven-year high of 8,939.19 on Monday as a result of profit-taking.
Foreign investors bought a net NT$3.875 billion (US$118.2 million) worth of stocks yesterday, bringing their net purchases to NT$174.545 billion since the beginning of the year, stock exchange data showed.
UBS Securities wrapped up a two-day investment forum yesterday that attracted more than 200 institutional investors, 70 percent of which came from overseas, to meet with more than 90 local big-cap companies.
Two months ago, UBS Securities gave an overweight rating on the Taiwan stock market, which has been sizzling in recent weeks.
The Swiss brokerage invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
Both Ma and Lee spoke in favor of economic and cross-strait transparency, though not in explicit terms, as well as market liberalization, Chen said.
Retail buying will become more powerful as investors discount positive political changes pertaining to current China policy, the analyst said.
Emphasizing the value of the technology industry, UBS Securities projected that overall high-tech earnings would rise 39 percent in the third quarter and 19 percent in the fourth.
William Tung (
UBS Securities was not as optimistic about the financial sector, lifting its rating by one notch to "neutral" from "underweight."
"We did not see strong support for a further re-rating move in the industry's fundamentals," UBS Securities financial analyst Pandora Lee (
The financial sector is still suffering from continued margin contraction after the consumer credit abuse storm and intensifying competition for service fees as banks move toward wealth management in droves without significant differentiation, she said.
The local financial industry lacks demand and has too many players, and significant progress in consolidation as well as cross-strait market liberalization would be required to trigger a further rerating, Lee said.
Shin Kong Investment Trust Co (
"But it would require opening up to China further, for instance by implementing direct links, to boost the benchmark index back above 12,000 points," Shin Kong Investment vice president Kevin Lee (
Betting on an uptrend on the local bourse, the third quarter could be an ideal entry point for retail investors, bolstered by continued capital momentum, healthy fundamentals and government policy that would be advantageous to a bull market, he said.
Nevertheless, if the balance of margin trading exceeds NT$500 billion, compared with the current NT$300 billion, it could signal a bursting investment bubble, he said.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained