Vietnam mulls new fund
Vietnam’s regulator may help set up a fund aimed at stemming declines in the world’s worst-performing stock market.
“We are considering a proposal from investors and foreign analysts to set up a stabilization fund,” Vu Bang, chairman of the State Securities Commission of Vietnam, said by phone yesterday from Hanoi.
“The idea has been raised by investment firms and foreign analysts, not by the commission like some local newspapers reported,” Bang said.
Setting up a fund to buy stocks may help support the benchmark VN Index, which has lost 60 percent this year. The State Capital Investment Corp, which manages shareholdings for the government, said in March it would buy equities in an “urgent measure” to “stabilize” the market.
Yuanta rises following report
Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控), owner of Taiwan’s largest brokerage, rose in Taipei trading after the Chinese-language Commercial Times said the government plans to let local securities companies invest in Chinese counterparts through third-country subsidiaries.
Yuanta gained NT$0.45, or 1.9 percent, to NT$23.80, bucking a 0.3 percent decline in the benchmark TAIEX index at the 1:30pm close in Taipei. Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金) rose NT$0.60, or 1.9 percent, to NT$33, its biggest gain since May 30.
Brokerages will be allowed to buy as much as a third of Chinese counterparts under an initial proposal, matching China’s maximum ownership rule, the report said. The Mainland Affairs Council is expected to announce the rule after approval in the weekly Cabinet meeting on Thursday, it said.
JPMorgan report helps Wistron
Wistron Corp (緯創資通) climbed the most in a month in Taipei trading after JPMorgan Chase & Co said the company was its favorite stock among Taiwanese contract- manufacturers of laptops.
The world’s third-largest contract manufacturer of notebook computers climbed 3.7 percent to close at NT$47.30, the most since May 16.
“Wistron is our top pick,” Hong Kong-based analyst Alvin Kwock, who has an “overweight” rating on the stock, said in Friday’s report.
JPMorgan increased its projections for Wistron’s earnings per share next year by 10 percent, the report said.
The broker also raised its ratings on Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦) and Inventec Co (英業達) to “overweight” from “neutral,” Kwock wrote.
Taiwan-Russia seminar begins
A two-day seminar and exhibition on technological cooperation between Taiwan and Russia was inaugurated yesterday at the office of the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP), a CTSP official said.
Yang Wen-ke (楊文科), CTSP administrative director-general, and Vladislav Zinchenko, deputy governor of Tomsk Oblast, Siberia, presided over the opening ceremony of the seminar and the exhibition, which is being organized by the CTSP and central Taiwan’s Feng Chia University.
Yang said the seminar aimed to offer enterprises with operations in the CTSP a wide variety of information about the development of a special economic zone in the Tomsk region and helping the CTSP boost its competitiveness.
Stressing that the Tomsk region is looking forward to learning from Taiwan’s experience in developing industrial parks, Zinchenko expressed hope that Taiwan can help it train technological talent.
NT dollar weakens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday weakened by NT$0.019 to trade at NT$30.401 against the greenback on turnover of US$722 million.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”