Optimism offsets early losses
Taiwanese shares closed little changed yesterday as reports that China was preparing to resume talks with Taiwan helped offset early losses after Wall Street slumped on record oil prices, dealers said.
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan’s (劉兆玄) pledges that the new government remained committed to launching weekend flights and increasing tourist arrivals from China from early July also helped the market recover, they added.
The weighted index closed down 7.54 points at the day’s best level of 9,008.03, after hitting a low of 8,878.06. Turnover was NT$141.88 billion (US$4.67 billion).
Decliners outnumbered advancers 1,570 to 826, while 311 stocks were unchanged. A total of 22 stocks closed limit-up, while 21 were limit-down.
Hon Hai climbs on ‘orders’
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday saw its shares climb 2.6 percent on news that the firm, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, won orders to make notebook computers from Dell Inc. Shares of Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), Hon Hai’s subsidiary which makes computer casings, climbed 1.4 percent.
Shipments, which are expected to begin in the first quarter of next year, may total more than 3 million units, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday. Hon Hai denied the report in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange later yesterday.
Two insurers get green light
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday gave its approval to applications by two domestic non-life insurers to launch health insurance products, a commission statement said.
Among 11 applications, Cathay Century Insurance (國泰世紀產險) and Fubon Insurance Co (富邦產險) were qualified to launch health insurance related products, which will expire in only one year, in accordance with revisions to the Insurance Law (保險法), it said.
The commission is still reviewing the remaining nine applications, four of which have provided supplementary documents.
Fubon Financial raises profit
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the nation’s third-largest financial services company by market value, yesterday revised first-quarter net profit up 3 percent to NT$3.38 billion (US$111 million) from NT$3.28 billion as announced on April 10.
The revised profit, still unaudited, was down 2.2 percent from a year earlier, the Taipei-based company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Fubon attributed the profit decline to foreign exchange losses at its insurance unit, the statement said.
Fubon’s life insurance unit had an embedded value of NT$32.3 billion at the end of last year, representing NT$4.2 per share for the parent company, the statement said.
Stock exchange up one notch
The Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp announced on Wednesday that the combined market value of listed companies as of March had reached US$715.2 billion, ranking 19th among members of the World Federation of Exchange, up one notch from February’s standing.
According to federation statistics, the total market value of listed companies in Taiwan increased from US$663.7 billion at the end of last year, when it ranked 21st globally, to US$691.7 billion in February to rank 20th in the world, and to US$715.2 billion in March, a stock exchange official said.
The trading value of the Taiwanese stock market for the first two months of this year reached US$154.2 billion, ranking 18th among federation members, and increased to US$260 billion in March, with the ranking rising to 17th, the official 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