TAIEX recoups earlier losses
Taiwanese shares closed 0.56 percent higher yesterday as bargain hunting helped to recoup earlier losses on Wall Street’s declines overnight, dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 48.37 points at 8,627.80, off a low of 8,562.13 and a high of 8,635.94, on turnover of NT$85.48 billion (US$2.81 billion), which shrank from Tuesday’s US$98.37 billion.
However, many investors remained sidelined, keeping daily trading volume thin, amid fears that possible turbulence in the US credit market will further impact the country’s economy, they said.
Gainers outnumbered decliners 1,251 to 1,001, with 433 stocks unchanged.
Winbond secures hefty loan
Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子), the nation’s most unprofitable computer-memory maker, said it secured a NT$7.7 billion syndicated loan to fund capacity expansion.
The five-year loan was signed with 11 Taiwanese banks, the Hsinchu-based chipmaker said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Winbond, which posted a loss of NT$5.8 billion last year, said on March 14 it would spin-off its non-memory business on July 1. The company had NT$10.9 billion in cash at the end of March, more than NT$4 billion less than three months earlier, Bloomberg data showed.
Gou signs letter of intent
Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) signed a letter of intent with Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) at a software park in Kaohsiung yesterday, his first step in a high-profile plan to invest in the largest city in southern Taiwan.
At the signing ceremony, Gou said that the investment in the Kaohsiung Software Park would center on the cultivation and upgrading in terms of innovation, research, development and design.
In the early stage of the project, 3,000 jobs for software engineers are planned for within the next five years, with 520 software engineers to be hired before May 20 next year — the planned deadline for the first stage of the project, Gou said.
CPC posts millions in losses
CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) lost NT$10.1 billion last month and reported a loss of NT$43.2 billion in the first five months of the year, a company official said yesterday.
The company expects pretax losses grow to NT$82.2 billion this year if retail fuel prices continue to remain at the current levels, CPC vice president Chu Shao-hua (朱少華) said by telephone.
The government-controlled refiner had an NT$11.83 billion net profit and a NT$14.66 billion pretax profit last year.
CPC raised its prices of fuel oil and liquefied petroleum gas last week to reflect rising international crude oil costs. But its hikes covered only 50 percent of the increase needed to cover the rise in costs, and only 54 percent on the needed increase in natural gas prices.
Cathay Life to sell shares
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation’s biggest life insurer, intends to raise NT$15 billion selling shares to its parent company to help replenish working capital.
The company will sell 200 million new shares for NT$75 each to Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing showed on Tuesday, without elaborating.
NT drops against greenback
The NT dollar dropped against its US counterpart on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.06 to close at NT$30.350.
A total of US$1.117 billion changed hands during the day’s trading.
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