Shares close higher
Share prices closed 0.44 percent higher yesterday after Wall Street rose and oil prices slipped overnight, dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 40.23 points at 9,197.41, after trading between 9,171.39 and 9,241.52, on turnover of 180.87 billion NT dollars (US$5.89 billion).
Risers led decliners 1,466 to 906, with 321 stocks unchanged. A total of 31 stocks closed limit-up, while 15 were limit-down.
For the week to today, the weighted index closed up 405.02 points or 4.61 percent after a 1.91 percent fall a week earlier.
Average daily turnover stood at NT$147.58 billion, compared with NT$142.84 billion a week ago.
Oil price hits US$127
The price of oil rocketed to a record high point of US$127.43 per barrel yesterday, as US President George W. Bush prepared to urge Saudi Arabia to pump more crude, analysts said.
New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for June delivery, beat the previous all-time peak of US$126.98 set on Tuesday owing to worries about tight supplies despite a downgrade to global oil demand growth for this year.
The contract later stood at US$126.90, up US$2.78 from Thursday’s close.
On Thursday, OPEC trimmed its estimate of world oil demand growth, citing higher prices and slower economic momentum in major industrialized countries including the US.
Global oil demand was projected to grow by 1.35 percent this year, compared with a previous estimate of 1.4 percent, OPEC said in a monthly survey.
Neo Solar approves bonds
Local solar cell maker Neo Solar Power Corp (新日光) said yesterday the board has approved the sale of up to US$50 million in convertible bonds overseas to fund new facilities and equipment.
Neo Solar plans to offer a 2 percent coupon rate for the three-year bonds, a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
The issuance will still need approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission. Neo Solar is a solar energy subsidiary of the nation’s biggest computer memory maker, Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體).
Chinatrust named best bank
Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀) was named by the Asian Banker Journal to be the best retail bank in Taiwan last year, the bank said yesterday.
Along with 15 other best bank winners, Chinatrust outperformed the remaining 134 banks from 23 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the statement said, adding awards were given out to winning banks during the 2008 Asia Pacific Heads of Retail Banking Meeting in Bangkok yesterday.
The journal also claimed Chinatrust to have the best application of customer relationship management in the Asia-Pacific region, which was launched by the bank since 2005.
The best banks in other Asian countries include ANZ Bank in Australia, Standard Chartered Bank in Bangladesh and Industrial Commercial Bank of China (中國工商銀行), HSBC (Hong Kong) and Bank Central Asia in Indonesia as well as Mizuho Bank in Japan.
China Steel donates to Sichuan
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the largest processor and distributor of steel in Taiwan, donated NT$100 million (US$3.25 million) yesterday to help victims in earthquake-ravaged Sichuan Province in southwestern China.
The CSC management expressed the hope that the donation will be primarily used to rebuild collapsed schools in earthquake-stricken areas and it also called on all CSC staff and workers to donate to the quake relief effort.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts