Shares gain ground
Share prices closed up 1.17 percent yesterday after Wall Street made a comeback at the end of last week, dealers said.
The weighted index closed 85.02 points higher at 7,322.73, after fluctuating between 7,269.81 and 7,344.92, on turnover of NT$65.41 billion (US$2.03 billion).
The market opened 0.81 percent higher, as investors took cues from Wall Street’s gains, and the momentum extended until the end of session, led by so-called “China chips” which have close business ties with China, dealers said.
However, the daily trading volume fell to the lowest level so far this year, as many investors remained on the sidelines amid cautious sentiment, the dealers said.
“It is too early to say whether the market has pulled out of its recent downward trend,” said Concord Securities (康和證券) analyst Alan Lin said. “That’s why many investors here preferred to watch rather than act.”
Lin said the low turnover has made it hard for the market to overcome strong resistance after last week’s heavy losses.
He said investors should watch closely to see how foreign institutional investors respond to future fluctuations on Wall Street. If the US markets start falling again, redemption pressure on foreign institutional investors will go up, paving the way an exodus of funds from Asia.
China chips rebounded significantly on hopes that robust domestic demand in China would continue to boost their bottom line, dealers said.
Tatung secures loan deal
Home electronics giant Tatung Co (大同) yesterday secured a syndicated loan of NT$3.6 billion from 12 domestic lenders, Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), one of the banks, said in a statement.
The loan, which 12 bank lenders had originally oversubscribed by 48 percent, will be used to fund its mid-term operation and repay its old loans, the bank’s said.
Tatung’s 100 percent-owned property investment arm is expected to launch sales of a to-be-built housing project worth NT$6 billion in the middle of this year, it said in a statement.
Lite-on gains on Natal story
Lite-on Technology Corp (光寶) yesterday jumped by 2 percent to close at NT$36.25 per share after the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported it received NT$20 billion in orders for assembling Microsoft Corp’s Natal.
Natal, which will be launched on June 13th, allows users to control games through bodily motions, the paper said, citing unidentified sources.
Lite-on spokesman wasn’t available for comment yesterday.
In separate news, BIG SUN Energy Technology Inc (太陽光電能源科技), plans to spend NT$1.3 billion expanding production capacity, the Hsinchu-based solar cell maker said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. It’s board approved a plan to seek a five-year NT$1.6 billion syndicated loan, it said in another stock exchange filing.
NT dollar rebounds
The New Taiwan dollar gained, rebounding from its lowest level this year as the TAIEX rose.
“Foreign capital may start flowing back into the Taiwan stock market, which is rising,” said Juan Hao-yun, a currency trader at Kingstown Bank (京城銀行) in Taipei.
The NT dollar advanced 0.2 percent to close at NT$32.175 against its US counterpart on turnover of US$547 million, Taipei Forex Inc data shows. It reached NT$32.281 last Monday, the lowest level since Dec. 30, 2009.
The currency has weakened in the final minutes of trading almost every day in the past month as the central bank intervened, said traders familiar with the bank’s operations who declined to be identified.
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