Share prices closed 80.8 points higher yesterday on the last trading day before the Lunar New Year, with the benchmark TAIEX index finishing at 7,441.84 points on turnover of NT$106.71 billion (US$3.33 billion).
This was the 11th consecutive year the TAIEX ended higher on the last trading day of the lunar year. For the whole of the Year of the Ox, the TAIEX rose 75 percent from the previous year.
Following Dow Jones industrial average’s recovery to the benchmark 10,000-point level on Tuesday and mitigated market fears over sovereign defaults in the euro zone, the local bourse opened 77 points higher amid strong buying.
“There was bargain hunting as some investors anticipated a further market rally after the Lunar New Year festival,” Michael Chiang of Taiwan International Securities (金鼎證券) said.
Shares of HTC Corp (宏達電), maker of Google Inc’s Nexus One Android smartphone, rose 3.54 percent to a weekly closing high of NT$307.50 after the company said its board had approved plans to buy back as many as 15 million shares on the open market from yesterday through April 9.
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world’s No. 3 liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel maker, rose 0.28 percent to NT$36.30 on news that the government had given preliminary approval to the easing of restrictions on LCD investments in China.
Chip, IC testing and IC design shares also traded heavily on news that the government would soon allow investment in China, while shares of traditional businesses, such as steel, textiles, chemicals, and construction, as well as financial shares, rallied on sound fundamentals and an optimistic business outlook.
Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s second-largest computer vendor, rose 1.63 percent to NT$87.40 after it said fourth-quarter net income climbed 25 percent to NT$3.5 billion.
China Steel Corp (中鋼), Taiwan’s biggest maker of the metal, rose 2.5 percent to NT$32.75 after the company said it posted a pretax profit of NT$4.18 billion last month.
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s second-largest memory-chip maker, climbed by the daily limit to close at NT$25.40 as a measure of memory-chip prices rose to the highest level in three weeks. The DXI Index, a measure compiled by chip exchange DRAMeXchange Technology Inc (集邦科技), added 0.9 percent to 3,949.58, its highest since Jan. 18.
Far Eastern New Century Corp (遠東新世紀) rose 6.9 percent to NT$35.55, after Morgan Stanley raised the stock to “overweight” from “equalweight.” Its affiliate, Far Eastern Department Stores Ltd (遠東百貨), also rose 6.9 percent to NT$25.50.
Institutional investors were net sellers of NT$8.377 billion in shares, the 14th consecutive trading session in which they sold more than they bought, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Analysts said the higher close yesterday on an expanded market turnover of more than NT$100 billion signaled that investors may be bullish when the stock market opens again on Feb. 22 after the 11-day Lunar New Year holiday. However, the local bourse will be influenced largely by world markets, with main factors including the euro zone sovereign debt situation, China’s monetary policy and US economic data, analysts said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by