TAIEX slightly down
Taiwanese shares yesterday closed slightly lower on consolidation, with the TAIEX shedding 5.94 points, or 0.08 percent, to finish at 7,542.04 on turnover of NT$79.4 billion (US$2.48 billion).
Most major stock categories lost ground or remained unchanged, with textile issues the biggest losers, falling by 0.6 percent.
Foreign investors and Chinese qualified domestic institutional investors were net sellers of shares for the 10th consecutive session, selling NT$7.23 billion more in shares than they bought.
TCloud Computing unveiled
Trend Micro Inc (趨勢科技), the nation’s leading antivirus software maker, yesterday announced the establishment of a subsidiary to pursue business opportunities in cloud computing.
The wholly owned affiliate TCloud Computing (騰雲計算) is set to debut cloud computing-related solutions in the second quarter with an eye to Asian customers — especially telecoms service providers.
TCloud’s revenues are projected to reach NT$120 million in two years, a statement said.
TCloud and Trend Micro are expected to announce more than 200 research and development vacancies this year, it said.
While the US and Europe are pioneers in the field of cloud computing, the creation of TCloud would help Taiwan secure a leading position in that booming sector, Trend Micro CEO Steve Chang (張明正) said in the statement.
Lextar secures NT$8bn loan
Lextar Electronics Corp (隆達電子) yesterday secured a NT$8 billion syndicated loan from 11 domestic banks, Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行) said in a press statement.
The lenders had previously oversubscribed the loan by 50 percent, which reflected a vote of confidence on the light-emitting diode (LED) chips supplier’s development, the statement said.
Lextar is a LED unit spinoff of AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the nation’s largest liquid-crystal-display panel maker.
Man offers to ‘launder’ money
A creative Taiwanese businessman has come up with a new service catering to consumers ahead of the Lunar New Year — washing dirty bank notes so they can be used as holiday gifts.
Yu Guan-cheng (尤官正) asks NT$300 for washing 20 bank notes, soaking them in chemicals, rinsing with water and hanging them out to dry, TVBS news channel reported.
“Some people think I’m crazy to offer this service and wonder who would want to have their money washed,” he told TVBS, adding that he has new customers coming daily.
Grandparents and parents usually give “red envelopes” stuffed with clean and fresh bank notes to children for good luck in the upcoming year.
NT reaches yearly low
The New Taiwan dollar traded near its weakest level of the year as concern that some European countries will have difficulty financing budget deficits bolstered demand for the greenback.
Currencies declined across Asia’s emerging markets after EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said on Wednesday that Greece and Portugal’s external financing needs were “big,” spurring a slump in the euro.
The NT dollar was supported by demand from exporters below NT$32 versus the US dollar, said Yang Kung-yi (楊恭逸), a currency trader at Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (上海商銀).
“The euro is going lower,” Yang said. “That helped the NT dollar go down a little bit as generally the US dollar is stronger. Exporters will sell if the price is higher than NT$32.”
The local currency dropped by NT$0.020 to close at NT$32.02 against its US counterpart.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to