Profit-taking limits TAIEX gains
Share prices closed up 0.11 percent yesterday after profit-taking reduced early gains sparked by Wall Street reaching a high for this year overnight, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 9.05 points to 7,972.59 on turnover of NT$115.60 billion (US$3.59 billion).
Despite the upside, losers outnumbered gainers by 1,398 to 1,293, with 336 stocks unchanged.
The market opened up 0.55 percent, vaulting the index past the key 8,000-point level, but failed to close above that level as investors pocketed profits during the day’s trading, dealers said.
“It was no surprise that the pressure pulled the index back to some extent,” Taiwan International Securities (金鼎證券) analyst Michael Chiang said.
Sentiment has improved after US jobless benefit claims fell to a 15-month low, Chiang said.
Chip tester, Chipbond to merge
Chip-testing company International Semiconductor Technology Ltd (飛信半導體) said it would merge with Chipbond Technology Corp (頎邦科技).
Financial details were not disclosed in an exchange filing from Kaohsiung-based International Semiconductor yesterday.
The merger is tentatively set for June 1, it said.
International Semiconductor rose 2.4 percent to close at NT$14.95 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange before the announcement. Chipbond added 2.4 percent to NT$30.45.
International has a market value of about NT$6 billion (US$186 million), while Hsinchu-based Chipbond has a market capitalization of NT$9.7 billion.
Asustek, Quanta eye China
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) plans to invest US$30 million to set up a holding company in China for its businesses including retail, customer services and research and development, the Taipei-based company said in an exchange filing yesterday.
Meanwhile, Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) is evaluating several sites in China on which to build a new plant and will make a final decision by June, company deputy spokeswoman Carol Hsu (�?@) told Dow Jones Newswires yesterday.
Chongqing is one of the possible locations, she said, declining to give further details.
Cathay gets Jiangsu approval
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the nation’s largest listed financial services company, said its Chinese insurance venture won regulatory approval to open a branch company in Jiangsu Province, a filing to the stock exchange on Thursday said.
Formosa Plastics to sell bonds
Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) plans to sell as much as NT$10 billion (US$310 million) in corporate bonds to help repay short-term debt and improve its financial structure, the Taipei-based company said in a stock exchange filing yesterday.
The bonds will have a maturity of up to five years and the company will issue the bonds in a single sale or in several tranches, Formosa Plastics said in a statement.
Separately, Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) plans to sell as much as NT$24 billion in corporate bonds, the company said in another stock exchange filing yesterday.
NT dollar edges up
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.055 to close at NT$32.245.
A total of US$230 million changed hands during the day’s trading.
The local currency opened at NT$32.300 against the greenback and appreciated to NT$32.227 during the session.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts