The stock market mounted a strong rebound for the second straight day yesterday, gaining 187.02 points, or 3.99 percent, to close at 4,870.66 on government intervention and Wall Street rallies, analysts said.
Turnover expanded to NT$86.8 billion (US$2.63 billion), the biggest amount this month, with 277 stocks closing limit up and 25 limit down, Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp data showed.
Alan Tseng (曾炎裕), an analyst at Capital Securities Corp (群益證券), branded the rally a technical rebound attributable chiefly to the government’s use of the National Stabilization Fund to boost the monthly TAIEX performance figures.
“The government appeared to become more active and dumped more funds into the local bourse these days after being blamed for ineptitude in shoring up the market,” Tseng said by telephone. “Investors who buy now are likely to be trapped as the economic fundamentals remain unchanged.”
Institutional fund managers purchased a net NT$3.19 billion in local shares, notably in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) and Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) stocks whose prices were deemed to be unfairly low, Tseng said.
The analyst said the rebound was a short-lived phenomenon that was expected to lose ground next week.
“Granted Wall Street is relatively stable this week,” Tseng said. “But investors seeking short-term profits will dispose of their shares before it is too late.”
Altogether, the TAIEX rose 291 points, or 6.4 percent, this week. Still it shed 848 points, or 14.8 percent, from September when the index declined 18.8 percent.
Winson Wang (王榮旭), an analyst at Marbo Securities Consultant Co (萬寶證券投顧), agreed that the local bourse would remain volatile next week when the index was expected to witness drastic fluctuations.
The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics and the Ministry of Finance are scheduled to publish the latest figures on consumer prices and exports on Wednesday and Friday.
“Chances are key economic pointers will post disappointing showings when they are unveiled next week,” Wang said by telephone.
The rebound in equity markets, however, failed to benefit the local currency as the New Taiwan dollar dropped 0.6 percent to trade at NT$33 per US dollar, following a rare pickup of 1.5 percent a day earlier.
Turnover on the Taipei Forex Inc was at US$1.137 billion, while turnover was US$498.5 million on the smaller Cosmos Foreign Exchange.
A trader at the Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行) said the NT dollar’s weakening fell in line with the nation’s economic outlook and the rebound on Thursday went overboard.
“There is little room for the NT dollar to strengthen in light of the nation’s economic state,” the currency dealer said on condition of anonymity. “The currency appreciated too much on Thursday, which accounted for the downward adjustment today.”
The trader said the NT dollar would continue to devalue until it hit NT$33.5 against the greenback, with sporadic rallies in between. It gained 1.2 percent this week.
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
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
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],”
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