Little action on TAIEX
The TAIEX closed little changed yesterday in quiet trading, with investors remaining on the sidelines watching closely how companies will report sales for last month next week, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 6.40 points, or 0.08 percent, to 8,244.18 after moving between 8,220.73 and 8,260.28 on a turnover of NT$111.96 billion (US$3.59 billion).
The market opened up 0.26 percent as rotational buying resumed in select old economy stocks, but the gains were compromised by cautious sentiment ahead of the September sales announcements by electronics heavyweights, the dealers said.
A total of 1,895 stocks closed up and 1,806 down with 357 remaining unchanged.
LPG prices increased
CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said it would increase liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) prices for this month to reflect higher international costs.
The prices were raised by NT$1.25 per kilogram, the company said on its Web site yesterday. The state-run refiner said it would keep natural gas prices unchanged.
The wholesale price of the fuel for households will climb to NT$26.46 a kilogram from NT$25.21, effective today, the company said.
DynaComware to expand brand
DynaComware Taiwan Inc (威鋒數位開發), a Taiwanese developer of fonts used in PCs and information communications products, is aiming to expand its brand clientele base in the region, the company said on Wednesday.
The company has designed a set of character fonts in Mandarin, Korean, English and Japanese for users to document their work.
In 2004, DynaComware started to tailor-make font solutions for brand clients including Samsung Electronics Co, Sony Corp, Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) and Hanvon Technology Co (漢王). Currently, brand clients and retail boxes make up 50 percent each of the company’s sales, said Amanda Yang (楊佳琳), DynaComware’s sales vice president.
MStar to list on TAIEX
MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體), a Cayman Islands-registered integrated circuit designer, has obtained approval from the Taiwan Stock Exchange to launch a primary listing on the main board, the exchange said yesterday.
MStar, capitalized at NT$4.56 billion, is planning to issue 50.71 million new shares at NT$201 each to raise NT$10.19 billion from the listing as operating capital for future expansion, according to the company’s prospectus.
MStar products are used largely in consumer electronics products, in particular LCD TVs and LCD displays for computers.
The company said it expects the fund raising will be completed by the end of the second quarter next year. Capital Securities has been appointed as the underwriter for the sale.
NT dollar soars, then drops
The New Taiwan dollar had its biggest weekly gain since May last year as the central bank raised interest rates for the second time this year and Chinese data suggested demand is strengthening in Taiwan’s biggest export market.
The NT dollar rose as much as 0.8 percent yesterday before surrendering almost all of the gain in late trading on suspected intervention by the central bank, according to two traders familiar with the matter who declined to be identified.
The NT dollar closed at NT$31.31 against its US counterpart, up 0.1 percent from Thursday and 1 percent higher than a week ago, according to Taipei Forex Inc. It touched NT$31.066 in the final hour of trading, the strongest level since August 2008.
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
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the