Shares rise on bargain hunting
Share prices closed up 1.07 percent yesterday on active bargain hunting as investors shrugged off a Wall Street fall at the end of last week, dealers said.
Gains in other major regional markets, including Japan and South Korea, also prompted investors to take advantage of recent heavy losses, leaving behind worries about tensions in the Korean Peninsula, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 78.66 points at the day’s high of 7,373.98, off an earlier low of 7,292.54, with turnover at NT$67.93 billion (US$2.12 billion).
“After last week’s heavy losses, investors tended to pick up stocks with attractive valuations, in particular small and medium shares,” President Securities (統一證券) analyst Vickie Hsieh (謝雯霞) said.
Hsieh said old-economy stocks remained the favorites of bargain hunters. She said investors rushed to buy cement and construction stocks after the government announced a three-stage plan to expand Taipei Songshan Airport.
Acer board backs bond sales
Acer Inc (宏碁), the second-largest laptop supplier in the world, said its board approved plans to sell up to a total of US$550 million of unsecured convertible bonds overseas in two tranches.
The company plans to sell up to US$300 million of five-year convertible bonds and up to US$250 million of seven-year convertible bonds, Acer said in two separate filings. The company aims to raise foreign currency funds to buy raw materials, the statements said.
Winbond reaches loan deal
Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電) agreed to a NT$7 billion loan with 16 banks, including Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中信銀) and First Commercial Bank (一銀), the chipmaker said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
The fund will be used to upgrade technology and boost working capital, the company said.
In related news, ChipSiP Technology Co (鉅景科技), a local fabless IC integration house, secured a three-year NT$400 million syndiated loan from five lenders yesterday, Chinatrust said in a press statement. The loan will be used to fund the company’s long-term operation, the statement said.
Central bank urges caution
The central bank yesterday urged bills financing companies to “manage liquidity well” and said it would closely watch conditions around the end of the year. It is important to manage risk regarding availability of funds, the central bank said in an e-mailed statement.
Meanwhile, the bank said in another press statement that it issued NT$231 billion in certificates of deposit yesterday, less than the NT$237.1 billion that matured.
NT dollar slips
The New Taiwan dollar fell, erasing earlier gains, as the central bank sold the currency in the final minutes of trading to prevent appreciation that may hurt exports, according to a trader who declined to be identified.
The currency dropped 2.5 percent this month, its biggest loss since February last year. The bank has sold the currency during the final minutes of trading most days in the past month, according to dealers familiar with the bank’s operations who asked not to be named.
“At the end of the day, the central bank wants to make sure the trend doesn’t deviate significantly from other Asian currencies,” said Suan Teck Kin, an economist in Singapore at United Overseas Bank Ltd. “The trade impact is still a high priority of the central bank.”
The NT dollar weakened 0.2 percent to close at NT$32.225 against its US counterpart, having earlier strengthened as much as 0.7 percent, Taipei Forex Inc.
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
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