SinoPac gains approval for deal
SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) received approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission for its cooperation deal with China Huarong Asset Management Corp (中國華融資產管理公司), the Taipei-based company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Macronix using new technology
Local memory chipmaker Macronix International Co Ltd (旺宏) yesterday said it has skipped the 90 nanometer process node and moved directly to 75 nanometer technology, ahead of schedule, according to an e-mailed statement.
The new NOR Flash products will be used in networking, computing, consumer and mobile applications, the chipmaker said.
The first product based on the new 75 nanometer technology is a 256Mbit density Parallel NOR Flash Memory, which is currently being sampled by leading WiMax, GPON and Set-Top-Box OEM customers.
Acer sells Yosun shares
Acer Inc (宏碁) booked a gain of NT$217.4 million (US$6.8 million) from the sale in 6.5 million shares in Yosun Industrial Corp (友尚), the company said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
Acer sold the shares between June 22 and yesterday at an average price of NT$55.05 per share, it said.
Chipmaker buys equipment
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) bought NT$687 million of equipment from Applied Materials South East Asia Pacific Ltd between Sept. 13 and yesterday, the Hsinchu-based company said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
Certificates of deposit issued
The central bank issued NT$172.5 billion in certificates of deposit yesterday, more than the NT$154.98 billion that matured, the bank said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
The central bank sold 30-day certificates at 0.63 percent, 91-day at 0.67 percent and 182-day at 0.77 percent, according to the statement.
TAIEX closes up
The TAIEX closed up 0.35 percent yesterday as buying focused on non-high-tech stocks amid renewed hopes that increasing cross-strait economic exchanges will boost firms that have close business ties with China, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 28.63 points to 8,186.96, after moving between 8,161.82 and 8,195.74, on turnover of NT$121.95 billion.
The market opened up 0.20 percent and follow-through buying in old economy stocks helped the bourse maintain its strength, although strong technical resistance ahead of 8,200 points capped the upside, dealers said.
Mega Securities (兆豐證券) analyst Alex Huang (黃國偉) said traditional industry stocks remained appealing to investors who expected such firms to get a boost in their bottom lines from the huge China market.
NT dollar dips slightly
The New Taiwan dollar was little changed, retreating from its strongest level in more than four months, on speculation the central bank intervened to check appreciation that may hurt exports.
The bank bought US dollars in the last few minutes of trading, according to two traders familiar with the matter who declined to be identified.
The NT dollar has pared gains or weakened in the final minutes of trading on most days in the past five months due to central bank intervention, according to the traders.
The NT dollar depreciated NT$0.013 against the greenback to NT$31.752 yesterday. Turnover totaled US$578 million during the trading session.
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