TAIEX rises 103.23 points
Shares rose yesterday as investors hunted for bargains after earlier price declines.
The TAIEX rose 103.23 points, or 1.2 percent, to 9,017.08, on turnover of NT$131.34 billion (US$3.98 billion).
Risers led decliners 976 to 712, with 257 stocks unchanged.
The market overcame a fall to 8,841.64 after the start of trading with mutual funds and foreign investors being the main players.
Shares are likely to consolidate in the range of 8,800 to 9,000 today, Taiwan International Securities Corp's (金鼎證券) Cecelia Lu said.
"There's still a lack of confidence in the market so traders are taking profit and then bargain hunting in very weak volume," Lu said.
The market may only move sustainably higher if volume picks up, she said.
Taiwan Mobile increases holding
Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation's second-biggest telecom operator, said yesterday it has increased its holding of the fixed-line company to 86 percent in a deal worth NT$735.37 million.
Taiwan Mobile said its fully owned subsidiary has bought 89.08 million shares at a price between NT$7.8 and NT$8.3 per share of Taiwan Fixed Network Corp (台灣固網).
Yesterday, local telecom equipment maker Tecom Co (東訊) said it would sell 55.3 million shares of Taiwan Fixed to Taiwan Mobile for approximately NT$459 million.
In late April, Taiwan Mobile's board approved the proposal to buy additional 1.03 billion Taiwan Fixed shares at maximum NT$8.55 billion after having 73.9 percent stakes.
FSC okays Taitung takeover
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) gave the go-ahead yesterday to ABN Amro Bank NV's proposal to take over debt-ridden Taitung Business Bank (台東企銀).
The deal is scheduled to close on Sept. 22. After the acquisition, ABN Amro will have a total of 37 outlets throughout the nation, up from five.
In June, ABN Amro won the bid in an auction of Taitung Business for NT$6.9 billion.
New Okinawa, Cebu routes
Mandarin Airlines, a subsidiary of China Airlines, will operate two more international charter routes -- Kaohsiung-Okinawa and Kaohsiung-Cebu -- from next Tuesday and next Thursday respectively, a spokesman for the carrier said yesterday.
The maiden Okinawa flight will depart Kaohsiung at 6:40pm and arrive in Okinawa at 9:10pm. Each of its first 80 passengers will be given an aircraft miniature as a souvenir.
The Cebu flight will depart Kaohsiung at 11am and arrive in Cebu at 1:20pm on Thursday. The flight will have one round trip every Thursday and Sunday, the spokesman said, adding that the first is already fully booked.
Ten-year bonds fall
Taiwan's 10-year bonds fell as inflation accelerated, eroding the value of debt's fixed income. The currency was little changed.
Ten-year yields climbed for a second day after the statistics bureau said yesterday consumer prices rose 1.59 percent year-on-year last month, almost double the 0.8 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 17 economists. Prices declined 0.34 percent in July.
The yield on the benchmark 1 7/8 percent bond maturing March 2017 gained 1.3 basis points, or 0.013 percentage point, to close at 2.499 percent on the GRETAI Securities Market. Its price fell 0.1008, or NT$100.8 per NT$100,000 face amount, to 94.7666.
The New Taiwan dollar was little changed at NT$33.048 against the US currency, Taipei Forex Inc 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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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