TAIEX advances 1.3 percent
Share prices closed 1.3 percent higher yesterday, led by electronics stocks after computer chipmaker Intel reported better-than-expected earnings, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 99.15 points to close at 7,695.75 on turnover of NT$148.03 billion (US$4.6 billion).
Gainers outnumbered losers 1,684 to 876, while 261 shares remained unchanged.
“Intel’s better-than-expected earnings report did help lift investor confidence, especially as some [investors] were reluctant to further increase their portfolio” after the recent sharp increase in share prices, said Steven Huang of President Securities.
Stock futures to be offered
The government aims to allow trading in futures on individual stocks before the end of the year, giving the local derivatives market a major boost, financial officials said yesterday.
The Taiwan Futures Exchange said it was preparing new rules and would submit them soon to the Financial Supervisory Commission for approval.
“Our target is for the new products to hit the market before the year’s end,” an exchange official said.
Taiwan Futures Exchange currently offers futures and options on major Taiwan stock indices, government bond futures and equity options, but not on individual stocks.
The government has so far restricted trading in derivatives in an attempt to reduce financial risk. However, officials are concerned the narrow choice of products has slowed Taiwan’s development as a regional financial hub.
NCC tells telcos to share profit
The National Communications Commission (NCC) has decided to charge a certain percentage of the profit that mobile phone service providers earn from auctioning so-called “gold numbers,” or popular numbers that carry special meanings, commission vice chairman Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said yesterday.
Chen said mobile phone service providers made more than NT$5 million (US$155,000) each year on average from these numbers.
“Considering that these numbers are public resources released by the NCC to the firms with no charge, it would not be fair for mobile service operators to make a huge profit without paying anything in return,” he said, adding that details, such as the percentage to be charged, would be decided later.
“The new policy will go into effect next year the earliest,” Chen added.
PRC optimistic on sourcing
Chinese procurement from Taiwan next year is expected to surpass the figure this year, although Beijing will adopt a different procurement approach, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade vice president Zhang Wei (張偉) said yesterday.
Zhang said that from next year, Chinese procurement from Taiwan would be “normalized,” meaning procurement would be made on a regular basis rather than sending procurement groups that each spend at least NT$1 billion (US$31 million).
Zhang made the remarks in response to comments on the limited size of Chinese investment in Taiwan after the government began allowing investment in certain areas from the other side of the Strait in late June.
Official statistics showed that Chinese investments totaled a mere NT$189 million as of the end of September, far lower than public expectations.
NT dollar advances
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.060 to close at NT$32.242. Turnover was US$908 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],”
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