TAIEX declines on profit taking
The TAIEX closed down 0.45 percent yesterday as the high-tech sector continued to see profit taking, while select old economy stocks remained resilient, preventing the broader market from falling further, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 34.95 points to 7,666.34 after moving between 7,665.78 and 7,718.92 on turnover of NT$87.54 billion (US$2.72 billion).
Wall Street moved lower overnight after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the US economic outlook remained “unusually uncertain.”
“Despite the fall, the selling on the local bourse was not intolerable,” Concord Securities analyst Allen Lin said. “Bernanke’s comments did have some impact on the market here, but the impact was limited as many investors expect the moderate growth rate of the global economy in the second half of this year.”
Lin said yesterday’s selling focused on large-cap high-tech stocks amid earnings uncertainty before they report second quarter results next week.
Taiwan issues more deposits
Taiwan’s central bank issued NT$70 billion in certificates of deposit yesterday and more than NT$66.55 billion matured, the monetary authority said in a statement on its Web site.
It sold 30-day certificates of deposit at an interest rate of 0.63 percent, 91-day securities at 0.67 percent and 182-day deposits at 0.77 percent, according to the statement.
Taiwan seeks Singapore FTA
Taiwan may seek a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Singapore following its first such deal with China, the nation’s top negotiator with China, Chiang Pin-kung (江炳坤), said yesterday.
“An agreement with Singapore may be the easiest option because there are no issues over agricultural exports,” Chiang, 77, chairman of the Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation, said in an interview in Taipei yesterday. “We also hope to sign FTAs with countries in Southeast Asia and even Japan.”
Taiwan signed its first trade accord with China last month, strengthening commercial ties with the world’s fastest-growing major economy, and the nation’s biggest trading partner and investment destination. Taiwan’s legislature may rubberstamp the agreement with China next month, Chiang said.
TSMC announces investigation
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday said the US International Trade Commission had launched a patent infringement investigation into the company.
TSMC said the probe came after non-profit corporation STC.UNM alleged that the local chipmaker had illegally used its intellectual property rights, according to a company statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The Hsinchu-based chipmaker said the accusation was groundless. STC.UNM was attempting to charge TSMC royalties via IPR lawsuits, according to the statement.
South Korean chipmaker Samsung Electronics Co was also involved in the same investigation, TSMC said.
Audi building showroom
German car manufacturer Audi, eying the potential for sales growth in northern Taiwan, has started to build a showroom in Hsinchu City, the company said yesterday.
Audi sold 1,182 cars in Taiwan in the first six months of the year, up 252 percent from the same period last year, representing its highest sales since the company entered Taiwan, the company’s Taiwan office said.
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