TAIEX falls on profit taking
Share prices closed 0.8 percent lower yesterday on profit taking and the tumble in the Chinese market on Wednesday, dealers said.
The TAIEX dropped 56.52 points to 7,027.11 on turnover of NT$145.84 billion (US$4.44 billion).
Losers outnumbered gainers 1,637 to 701, while 151 shares remained unchanged.
The market opened low on profit-taking, with the weighted index at one point plunging to the day’s low of 6,944.50 but then bargain-hunting set in.
“The Chinese market’s sharp fall in the previous session certainly had impacts on investors, but the real pressure behind the fall was profit-taking,” Capital Securities (群益證券) analyst Chen Yu-yu (陳育娛) said.
TWSE has Japanese Web site
The Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE, 台灣證交所) will launch a Japanese Web site today as part of its effort to attract Japanese investors, the company said yesterday.
The launch will make the TWSE the third regional stock exchange to establish a Japanese Web site after the Korea Stock Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Thailand.
The site will include market charts and data, information about the TWSE, data of listed companies, listings in Taiwan by foreign issuers, products and services information, and investor education material, TWSE said.
FSC fines Nan Shan Life
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) fined Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) NT$3.3 million yesterday for violating the Insurance Law (保險法).
The life insurer had set aside insufficient reserves, NT$160 million short, for some policies and paid foreign currencies to New Taiwan dollar-denominated policyholders, the commission said in a statement.
The commission also fined Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) NT$3 million for violating the Financial Holding Company Law (金融控股公司法).
Shin Kong was punished for not seeking its board’s approval before leasing its office building to affiliated companies, including Shin Kong Commercial Bank (新光銀行) and Shin Kong Security Co (新光保全), the statement said.
New bank officials named
The board of Shing Kong Commercial Bank (新光銀行) appointed Lai Chin-yuan (賴進淵) as its new president on Wednesday.
Lai, 58, will lead Shing Kong to expand its presence among China-based Taiwanese businesses, taking advantage of his past connections and financial expertise, the bank said in a statement.
After having worked at Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀) for 35 years, Lai was the executive behind the bank’s gaining a 25 percent market share among China-based Taiwanese businesses.
He recently retired from Mega International, subsidiary of Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金), as its president in the Asia-Pacific market and was immediately tapped by Shing Kong chairman Eugene Wu (吳東進) to take up the new position.
In other banking developments, Simon Dzeng (曾垂紀), formerly an executive vice president at Mega Financial Holding Co, will become president of the China Development Industrial Bank (中華開發工銀), a subsidiary of China Development Financial Holding Co (開發金控).
Dzeng will begin his new job on Monday, doubling as the financial service provider’s spokesperson.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.014 to close at NT$32.857.
Turnover was US$842 million.
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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