Profit-taking limits shares
Share prices closed down 0.22 percent in Taipei yesterday, reversing earlier gains due to profit-taking, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 17.15 points to 7,739.16 on turnover of NT$125.86 billion (US$3.93 billion). Losers led gainers by 1,588 to 998 with 290 stocks unchanged.
Investors took profits ahead of the US Thanksgiving holiday after the local market opened up 38.95 points to 7,795.26, said Michael Lin of Fubon Securities (富邦證券).
“They are also waiting to see how Thanksgiving sales are before taking any action,” he said.
Wall Street will be closed until Monday, and some foreign investors are expected to be absent due to the holiday.
Chinese bank’s shares slide
Shares of major lender China Minsheng Banking Corp (中國民生銀行) slid more than 3 percent in their first day of trade in Hong Kong yesterday amid anxiety this year’s stimulus-fed credit surge might weigh on the industry’s profits.
Minsheng’s stock closed down 3.2 percent to HK$8.79 (US$1.13) after the company raised some US$3.8 billion in Hong Kong’s biggest initial public offering of the year. Shares had been sold at HK$9.08, near the middle of a range of possible prices.
Analysts attributed the lackluster debut to a combination of bad timing, high price and worries that Minsheng and other banks may need to raise more money to offset any bad loans resulting from China’s enormous stimulus-fed credit boom.
Science park delegates meet
A joint meeting of representatives from Asia-based science parks opened yesterday in Hsinchu City with the aim of boosting regional cooperation and forging business opportunities.
The meeeting was sponsored by the Hsinchu Science Industrial Park Administration.
The meeting was opened by park Administrator Randy Yen (顏宗明), with National Science Council Minister Lee Lou-chuang (李羅權) and Hsinchu Mayor Lin Junq-tzer (林政則) in attendence. Other guests included Asian Science Park Association (ASPA) chairman Lee Jong Hyun and International Association of Science Parks (IASP) secretary-general Luis Sanz.
During the meeting Yen signed a memorandum of understanding on bilateral cooperation with Nguyen Van Lang, representative of the Vietnam-based Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park.
Philips faces EU charges
EU antitrust regulators have charged Royal Philips Electronics NV and others with running a cartel to fix the price of cathode ray tubes used in televisions and computer monitors, the EU executive and Philips said yesterday.
The European Commission did not name any of the companies it had charged. It said companies could defend themselves in writing and at an oral hearing before it decides to levy fines which can run as high as up to 10 percent of annual global turnover for each year the cartel operated.
Philips said in a statement that it had received the charges and “intends to continue assisting the regulatory authorities in these investigations.”
The EU probe focuses on cathode ray tubes used in computer monitors and color picture tubes used in TVs, and builds on surprise raids on companies to seek evidence in November 2007.
Regulators also charged Philips in July with fixing the price of liquid-crystal-display monitors.
NT dollar declines
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining by NT$0.008 to close at NT$32.244. Turnover was US$633 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],”
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
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