Shares closed up 0.87 percent yesterday at the day's highs on follow-through interest after the market finished above an important benchmark of 9,000 points on Wednesday, dealers said.
Trading could have driven prices higher had investors not cashed in some of their recent solid gains, reflecting a build-up in caution at this point, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 79.80 points at a high of 9,148.78. Turnover reached NT$197.31 billion (US$5.98 billion).
Overseas investors yesterday bought a net NT$12.45 billion worth in shares, compared with NT$5.27 billion net bought by domestic investment trust companies and NT$294 million net bought by domestic proprietary traders, according to stock exchange's data.
Shares of Innolux Display Corp (群創光電), the world's second-largest maker of liquid-crystal-display computer monitors, climbed to a record, as foreign investors continued buying the company's stocks after the company posted its largest monthly profit ever.
Innolux stock climbed 6.8 percent, the daily limit, to close at NT$148.50. The stock has almost tripled since its listing on the Taiwan stock exchange in October last year.
Net income during May jumped almost 29-fold from a year earlier to NT$1.19 billion (US$36 million), while sales increased 76 percent to NT$13 billion, Miaoli-based Innolux said in a statement on Wednesday. Earnings in May exceeded the company's first-quarter profit of NT$1.04 billion.
Profit surged after a "very slow" second-quarter last year, Innolux chief financial officer Thomas Hsu (許嘉成) said in a phone interview yesterday. The company is having a "much better" year this year, he said.
The company, which doesn't usually report monthly earnings, disclosed its May results after a request from the Taiwan Stock Exchange to comment on "abnormal" trading, Hsu said.
Local major high-tech companies are scheduled to start reporting second-quarter earnings from late this month and the market usually will use the results to gauge the strength of the tech sector's recovery.
Nan Ya Printed Circuit Board Corp (南亞電路), a maker of boards that connect the chips in personal computers, gained 1.7 percent to NT$205. Nan Ya's stock recommendation was raised to "hold" from "sell" by Pearl Lin, an analyst at Yuanta Securities Corp (元大證券). Lin wrote in a report dated yesterday that rising demand will boost the company's July revenue by 7 percent to 10 percent from June.
With a perceived strong momentum ahead, Mega International Investment Service (
But Jih Sun Securities Investment Consulting Co (日盛投顧) deputy manager Wilson Lien (連偉勝) said the chances of the market heading for a pullback are fast growing.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
FAULTs BELOW: Asia is particularly susceptible to anything unfortunate happening to the AI industry, with tech companies hugely responsible for its market strength The sudden slump in Asia’s technology shares last week has jolted investors, serving as a stark reminder that the world-beating rally in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor stocks might be nearing a short-term crest. The region’s sharpest decline since April — triggered by a tech-led sell-off on Wall Street — has refocused attention on cracks beneath the surface: the rally’s narrow breadth, heavy reliance on retail traders, and growing uncertainty around the timing of US Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts. Last week’s “sell-off is a reminder that Asia’s market structure is just more vulnerable,” Saxo Markets chief investment strategist Charu Chanana said in
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