The benchmark TAIEX is expected to fluctuate after encountering technical resistance at the 7,000 point level, but could test the 7,600 point level in the upcoming year if risk appetite among global investors remains high, Lim Say Boon (林哲文), chief investment strategist of Standard Chartered Bank’s wealth management group, told an outlook presentation in Taipei yesterday.
Closer business ties with China and the anticipated economic recovery in years to come will also contribute to the rise on the bourse, he said.
In the long run, Lim said he was highly optimistic, as “the global recession is almost over now” amid recovering global confidence and markets turning from oversold to overbought.
There is a possibility, he said, that the S&P500 index in the US would move toward the 1,000 point level from its level below 990 points, while the MSCI emerging market index could move toward the 895 point level from the current 840.
Ample liquidity and historical low valuations will bolster the equity market’s uptrend in the long run, he said.
But Lim also warned of growing risk of market corrections as the global economy is entering an inventory re-stocking cycle rather than a solid product cycle.
As the saving rate in the US climbed to 7 percent from its lowest at minus 2 percent, US consumers can only provide the world with “basic demand” while the global economy has to find new growth drivers such as increased consumption by middle-class earners in emerging markets or increased investment in alternative energies or infrastructure in emerging markets to offset the flat demand by consumers in the US.
Lim recommended that investors buy long-term objectives and refrain from short-term trading strategies because statistics showed that every dollar invested in the stock market in 1997 would see an annualized 10 percent return despite recessionary declines.
Against a weakening US dollar, Lim said that gold prices could reach US$1,050 per ounce over the next six to nine months.
Crude oil prices, meanwhile, would likely strengthen to US$80 per barrel by the end of the year, mostly on rising demand in China, Lim said.
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