Shares rise on extended buying
Taiwanese shares closed up 1.04 percent yesterday on extended buying after Wall Street posted gains for the fourth consecutive day, dealers said.
The TAIEX index rose 70.69 points to 6,850.99 on turnover of NT$133.07 billion (US$4.04 billion). Gainers led losers 1,554 to 735 with 190 stocks unchanged.
The market opened up 1.06 percent as investors took the lead from further gains on Wall Street overnight, helping the index breach the 6,800 point mark, dealers said.
“The better than expected Intel quarterly results continued to weigh in the local bourse,” Grand Cathay Securities (大華證券) analyst Mars Hsu said.
“Encouraged by a stronger NASDAQ, investors here seemed to have turned upbeat about the outlook of the global high tech sector for the third quarter,” Hsu said. “But, the room for further upside is limited as the index moves closer to the stiff resistance at around the key 7,000 point level.”
CPC to cut fuel prices
State-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and its private rival Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday they would cut prices of gasoline and diesel products by NT$0.4 and NT$0.5 per liter respectively. The new prices took effect last night for Formosa, and today for CPC.
After the adjustment, CPC’s price for a liter of 98-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$29.2. The price of 95-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$27.7 and 92-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$27.0 per liter. Diesel is NT$24.3 per liter.
Taipower orders CSBC vessels
CSBC Corp, Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船), the nation’s largest ship builder, obtained another government order yesterday. State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) placed an order for four 93,300 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) coal transporting container vessels valued at NT$6 billion.
Combined with last week’s NT$3.2 billion order for two 40,000 TEU oil tankers from CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油), CSBC has secured a total of NT$9.2 billion from the two state firms so far this year. Both orders are expected to deliver in 2011.
Wistron plans China investment
Local contract notebook maker Wistron Corp (緯創) plans to invest US$100 million into Wistron InfoComm (Taizhou) Co (緯創資通泰州) in China over the next three years in expectation of strong expansion in the notebook market.
The company’s board also approved a reduction in dividend payout from NT$1,080 to NT$982.8 per 1,000 common shares and a stock distribution decrease from 108 shares to 98.28 shares per 1,000 common shares. The ex-dividend date for Wistron stock is Aug. 4.
Chinese firms buy Taiwanese
Visiting Chinese retailers placed orders for US$146 million of goods from Taiwan this week, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) said in a statement yesterday.
The Chinese companies will spend an additional US$600 million in Taiwan in the next year, TAITRA chairman Wang Chih-kang (王志剛) said yesterday. Chinese representatives arrived last Sunday to meet suppliers.
Hefei Department Store Group Co (合肥百貨) signed a supply agreement with Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), said the Association of Trade and Economic Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits, which leads the Chinese trade group.
NT dollar edges up
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, edging up NT$0.004 to close at NT$32.955. Turnover was US$544 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],”