Shares of solar cell makers rose yesterday on news of more stable material supply and surging crude oil prices, with both Motech Industries Inc (
World oil prices set fresh record prices yesterday because of fears that a Turkish incursion into Iraq to pursue Kurdish rebels could disrupt supply.
Shares of solar cell makers have become a favorite target for investors when oil prices spike. The sector has also benefited from government incentives to nurture this burgeoning industry.
Shares of Motech, the nation's largest solar cell maker rose 6.9 percent to close at NT$363.5 on the GRETAI Securities Market.
Motech has said it planed to expand annual output from 180 megawatts to 280 megawatts next year.
Shares of E-ton, the nation's second-largest solar cell maker, was supported by recent news that it had obtained steady material supply from Japan-based M. Setek Co and US-based Adema Technologies Inc.
The company said earlier that it planned to increase its output from 70 megawatts this year to 150 megawatts next year and to 1,000 megawatts by 2011, the online news outlet cnyes.com reported yesterday, without citing sources.
The stock advanced 6.9 percent to close at NT$401 on the GRETAI market.
Chen Hung-wei (陳弘韋), an analyst who covers solar stocks at IBT Securities Investment Consulting Co (台灣工銀證券投顧), said both E-ton and Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (中美晶) should fare well in the medium to longer-term given adequate material supplies.
Shares of Sino-American Silicon rose 1.4 percent to NT$322.
Chen estimated that E-ton's net profit this year would rise 38.1 percent year-on-year to NT$1.01 billion, while Sino-American Silicon's would surge 82 percent to NT$1.84 billion.
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