FSC allows overseas bonds
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) relaxed restrictions on domestic securities brokerage firms yesterday to allow them to trade overseas bonds on the local bourse.
The deregulation allows domestic securities brokerage firms to freely trade overseas bonds with a credit rating of above BBB on the local bourse with a foreign currency-denominated risk exposure of less than 15 percent of their net worth or less than US$50 million, the commission said in a press statement.
Previously domestic securities brokerage firms were only allowed to trade overseas bonds on overseas bourses.
Polaris’ HK listing approved
The FSC yesterday approved Polaris Securities (Hong Kong) Co’s (寶來證券香港) application to list its Polaris Taiwan Top 50 Tracker Fun (HK) on the Hong Kong bourse.
It will be the nation’s first exchange-traded fund (ETFs) to cross-list on the Hong Kong bourse, pending regulatory approval by the territory’s stock regulator, the commission said in a statement. Three Hong Kong-based ETFs have also applied to cross-list on Taipei’s bourse.
TWSE seeks Shanghai listings
The Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (TWSE) will seek to list some of Taiwan’s traded companies in Shanghai to attract more investors as ties with China improve, chairman Schive Chi (薛琦) said.
“We can foresee the steps we are going to take and will take them one by one,” Schive said. “One of the steps is listing China depositary receipts. Let’s tentatively target five to 10 shares to be mutually listed.”
Any plan to list securities in China, however, must wait until authorities on both sides have signed a financial memorandum of understanding, Schive said.
TSMC, IDT agree to transfer
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday it would receive chip-production technology from Integrated Device Technology Inc (IDT).
TSMC will also manufacture for IDT on a contract basis after the US company closes a factory in Hillsboro, Oregon, the Taiwanese company said in a statement.
The technology transfer is expected to take up to two years to complete, the statement said.
Mortgages worry fathers
More than 90 percent of fathers said home mortgages were a bigger problem for them than they had been for their fathers, an Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) survey showed yesterday ahead of Father’s Day tomorrow.
Only 2 percent of fathers polled said they didn’t feel under great pressure from their mortgages, the survey found.
Nevertheless, some 67 percent of respondents said that they wanted to improve their children’s living standards by buying homes of their own, the survey found.
HTC sales drop 5.3 percent
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s largest smartphone brand running on Microsoft Corp’s Window’s Mobile, posted sales of NT$10.83 billion (US$330.32 million) last month, a drop of 5.3 percent over last year, and a 24.3 percent fall from the previous month.
January through July revenue was NT$80.62 billion, an increase of 2.36 percent from NT$78.76 billion posted for the same period last year, the company said.
NT dollar slides
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.072 to close at NT$32.792. A total of US$887 million changed hands during the day’s trading.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six