Tug-of-war drags TAIEX lower
Share prices closed slightly lower yesterday after a tug-of-war between bargain hunters and market pessimists amid concern over the pace of the global economic recovery, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed down 5.84 points, or 0.08 percent, at 7,151.99, after fluctuating between 7,128.92 and 7,179.14, on turnover of NT$85.10 billion (US$2.62 billion).
The market opened 0.22 percent lower on Wall Street’s continued weakness overnight, but bargain hunting during the trading session offset earlier losses as investors saw regional markets such as Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea stabilize after Monday’s sell-off, dealers said.
RT-Mart might raise US$800m
RT-Mart China (大潤發中國), China’s largest hypermarket chain by retail sales, could raise as much as US$800 million in an initial public offering in Hong Kong, said two people familiar with the planned sale.
The retailer will mainly sell new shares in Hong Kong this year, the people said. RT-Mart last week invited investment banks to present proposals for the IPO, which may raise US$600 million to US$800 million, they said.
“We haven’t found an underwriter,” an RT-Mart spokesman said, but declined to comment on how much the company hoped to raise or when the share sale might take place. “We have said before that we plan an IPO in Hong Kong.”
Capital inflow drops US$2.3bn
Overseas institutional investors and Chinese qualified domestic institutional investors (QDII) totaled a capital inflow of US$158.128 billion last month, down by US$2.312 billion from the previous month’s US$160.44 billion, Financial Supervisory Commission statistics showed yesterday.
In the first five months of this year, they had overbought TAIEX-traded shares by NT$13.2 billion (US$406 million) after having acquired NT$2.1263 trillion in shares and sold NT$2.1131 trillion in shares, the commission’s data found.
However, over the same period they had oversold over-the-counter shares by NT$9.4 billion after having bought NT$87.3 billion in shares and sold NT$96.7 billion in shares, the data showed.
Motech unit to sell 25% stake
Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), the nation’s largest solar cell maker, said yesterday its AE Polysilicon Corp unit agreed to sell a 25 percent stake to Total Gas & Power USA.
The Taipei-based company said in a stock exchange filing yesterday that its stake in the unit will fall to 33.3 percent from 53.7 percent after the sale, the statement said.
‘Hero 108’ coming to Taiwan
The animation Hero 108 — a joint production by Taiwan’s Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子), the UK’s Cartoon Network and Moon Scoop of France — is set to debut in Taiwan next month, which would make the nation the first market in Asia to see it.
The cartoon series, whose concept is derived from the Chinese classical novel The Water Margin Stories, marks the Taiwanese online game publisher’s first foray into animation production.
Gamania last month launched closed beta testing for a game with the same title in the US.
Hero 108 premiered simultaneously in the US, UK, Germany and Italy in March via the Cartoon Network channel, and the cartoon has now been broadcast in 47 countries, a company statement said.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday gained ground against the US dollar, rising NT$0.018 to close at NT$32.510. Turnover totaled US$768 million.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last