TAIEX hits 14-month high
Share prices closed up 0.50 percent yesterday, led by the construction and financial sectors, to hit the highest level in more than 14 months, dealers said.
However, analysts said the market should have pushed higher as it was propped up by positive news including Wall Street’s rally and stabilized cross-strait ties.
The TAIEX rose 37.06 points to 7,477.30 on turnover of NT$146.76 billion (US$4.53 billion).
Foreign institutional investors were net buyers for the third consecutive day, with net buying of NT$14.3 billion in shares, up from Wednesday’s NT$11.5 billion in shares.
Gainers outnumbered losers 1,298 to 1,154, while 223 shares remained unchanged. A total of 37 stocks surged to their daily 7 percent limit, against six limit-down.
Chinatrust selling shares
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) plans to sell 2.5 billion shares, or a 20 percent stake, to Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp and a US private equity fund for NT$44.35 billion to finance its bid for American International Group Inc’s (AIG) Taiwan unit, the Chinese-language Apple Daily reported yesterday, citing unnamed sources.
Sumitomo and the private equity firm will each take a 10 percent stake in Chinatrust and one board seat, the sources said.
Chinatrust sells insurance
Cathay Life Insurance (國泰人壽), the life insurance arm under Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), began sales of two of its life insurance products at the 100-strong outlets of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) yesterday.
The life insurer said in a statement that it hopes to take advantage of Chinatrust Financial’s bankassurance channels. The two firms inked an insurance partnership late last month.
Chinatrust Financial has teamed up with more than 10 life insurers, including China Life Insurance Co (中國人壽), to offer sales of traditional life insurance products, said Charlie Tseng (曾清傳), senior vice president of Chinatrust Financial’s banking product department.
It has also teamed up with Allianz Taiwan Life (安聯人壽) and Cardif Assurance Vie, Taiwan branch (法國巴黎人壽), to offer investment-linked insurance products, he said.
Tseng said the company would begin selling Shin Kong Life Insurance Co’s (新光人壽) products by the end of the year.
New mall set to open
A brand new upscale shopping mall Bella Vita, located in Taipei City’s Xinyi District (信義), is expected to have its grand opening on Monday — at least the first two floors.
Bella Vita will gradually open its remaining floors over the next month, local media reported.
Eight international luxury brands, including Bulgari, Hermes and Tod’s, have outlets on the first floor, while more than 50 popular fashion brands from Tokyo will also display their latest designs on the second floor, the reports said.
Quanta Computer Inc’s (廣達電腦) vice chairman and president C.C. Leung (梁次震) invested NT$9 billion in the European-style shopping mall and it will be managed by his wife and three daughters.
NT dollar gains
As foreign funds kept flowing in, the New Taiwan dollar was strong again against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.082 to close at NT$32.410.
Rising Taiwanese shares kept attracting overseas funds, which has been the major driving force lifting the NT dollar and pushing down the US dollar, dealers said.
A total of US$1.49 billion changed hands during the day’s trading, up from Wednesday’s US$1.2 billion.
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