Share prices closed 0.81 percent higher yesterday as investors hunted for bargains after the key index lost nearly 600 points over the past five sessions, dealers said.
They noted fresh hopes for an improvement in cross-strait ties as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄) prepares to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) today.
The weighted index closed up 70.56 points at 8,778.39, after moving in the range of 8,723.72 and 8,789.77 on turnover of NT$97.02 billion (US$3.2 billion).
Risers led decliners 1,293 to 1,053, with 339 stocks unchanged. A total of 26 stocks closed limit-up, while 14 were limit-down.
The tourism sector was up 5.2 percent, the cement sector gained 1.69 percent, steel was up 1.46 percent, electronics rose 0.87 percent and financial added 0.71 percent.
Foreign fund managers led the three major institutional investors with net selling of NT$1.4 billion in local stocks yesterday, after offloading a net NT$1.88 billion in local shares on Monday, stock exchange tallies showed.
Wang Chao-li (王兆立), an assistant vice president at Polaris Securities Co (寶來證券), said hopes for better economic ties with China sparked bargain-hunting.
“Recent developments have strengthened expectations of improvement in Taipei-Beijing relations and encouraged investors to hunt for bargains,” he said, adding that the tourism sector would be among major beneficiaries of policy deregulation.
Wang said high energy costs and inflation fears would continue to cast a shadow over the local bourse, limiting any rally spurred by cross-strait hopes.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
RSS