Shares fall early, close flat
Shares closed flat yesterday as some last-minute buying helped offset early falls driven by Wall Street's overnight pullback, dealers said.
Selected technology firms with robust earnings and bright outlook for the upcoming peak season managed to push the index into positive territory just before the closing bell, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 9.24 points or 0.11 percent at 8,727.55. Turnover was at NT$111.43 billion (US$3.38 billion).
A weak undertone in overseas markets prompted investors to take a cautious stance, although there was bargain-hunting in select stocks that saw significant correction recently, said Alex Huang (黃國偉) of Mega International Investment Services Co (兆豐國際投顧).
"Expectations of an upswing in steel prices on the global front boosted stocks in that segment, while some electronics [firms] attracted interest thanks to their earnings results for the first half," Huang said.
On the foreign exchange market, the New Taiwan dollar dropped NT$0.008 to close at NT$33.002 against the US dollar.
Turnover was US$737 million on the Taipei Forex Inc.
Apex buyout approved
The Investment Commission gave its approval yesterday for the buyout of Apex International Clinical Research Co (國際精鼎科技) by Parexel International Holding BV's of the Netherlands.
Parexel announced in June it would acquire Apex at NT$82.94 per share, or a total NT$1.79 billion. Apex is the first local biotech firm acquired by a foreign company.
The commission also gave a green light to Lehman Brothers Inc's application to turn its local branch into a subsidiary with an initial investment of US$30.37 million, it said in a statement.
From July 11 to yesterday, the commission approved 443 foreign investments worth US$600.71 million, and 473 outbound investments worth US$1.68 billion, its statistics showed. Of the overseas investment, China-bound investments accounted for 400 cases, or US$1.15 billion in value, the statistics showed.
Flat panel revenue to increase
Taiwan's flat panel makers and component suppliers are expected to have revenues increase at a slower pace this quarter due to easing supply constraint, Hsinchu-based research house Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) said yesterday.
Revenues of the flat panel industry may expand 9.8 percent to NT$438.89 billion in the third quarter from NT$399.88 billion in the second quarter, ITRI said.
The quarterly growth was much slower than 22 percent increase during April-June period.
"Panel supply could not match demand since earlier this year ... The tight supply should ease in the third quarter," ITRI said.
Merrill Lynch appoints new head
Merrill Lynch & Co, the world's third-largest manager of money for the rich, appointed Albert Lee (李玉秋) to head its local operations and expand its private-banking business in the country.
Lee will oversee private clients, research and global markets operations as the investment bank's first Taiwanese chairman and chief executive officer, Rob Stewart, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for Merrill Lynch, said in a phone interview yesterday.
Nan Ya posts profit decline
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), the world's biggest processor of plastics for pipes and imitation leather, posted a 4.8 percent decline in second-quarter profit to NT$11.9 billion (US$360 million) because of a loss booked from a chip-making affiliate.
The profit figure was derived from first-half results the company announced yesterday.
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