Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) yesterday saw its share prices soar limit-up after the stock was added to the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Barra’s Taiwan Index category, reversing a two-day drop.
The inclusion is expected to take effect after the stock market closes on May 30, the index compiler said in a statement on Tuesday. In its latest index review, MSCI Barra also included steel wire maker Feng Hsin Iron & Steel Co (豐興鋼鐵) and Taiwan Business Bank (臺灣企銀), a state-run lender focusing on domestic small to medium-sized enterprises, in its Taiwanese index.
Farglory, which made its debut on Aug. 6 last year, has seen its shares rally 50.85 percent amid bullish sentiment toward the nation’s property market. The stock closed at NT$106.5 (US$3.49) yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange after plunging 18 percent between April 16 and April 30.
Led by Farglory, the sub-index of construction shares underwent a technical rebound and rose an average 4.06 percent following a decline of nearly 20 percent over the past three weeks, SinoPac Securities Corp (永豐金證券) analyst Jesse Knutson said in a note to investors yesterday. That compared with a rise of merely 0.78 percent on the benchmark TAIEX index.
Before the recent weak performance, construction shares had surged on hopes of closer economic ties with China after the March 22 presidential election, continued foreign capital inflow to the real estate market and president-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) campaign promises to spend NT$3.99 trillion (US$130.7 billion) on 12 projects in Taiwan after taking office on May 20, the analyst said.
Separately, land prices in Taipei City will see little room for improvement except for luxury home projects, a real estate appraiser said yesterday.
“In the past, prices of small plots of land in the city have gone up by 10 percent, which seriously squeezed the profit margin of developers and construction companies,” Charlie Yang (楊長達), director of real estate appraisal for DTZ (戴德梁行), told a media briefing yesterday.
The recent hike in home prices would suppress the willingness of developers to compete for higher priced land in spite of a lack of supply in Taipei, he said. But high-income buyers may continue shopping for plots measuring a minimum of 300 ping (990m²) for luxury home projects, he added.
The government’s urban renewal plan is expected to offer incentives for owners of older homes to sell their land for new housing projects, which will relax tight supply, Yang said.
Owners in areas such as Zhongshan (中山), Zhongzheng (中正) and Da-an (大安) districts will be able to negotiate a 30 percent premium if they collectively agree to release a large plot of land, he said.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure