TAIEX rises on rebound
The TAIEX closed up 0.20 percent yesterday on a technical rebound from the previous session, but the gains were compromised by selling in large-cap electronics stocks amid renewed concerns over the earnings outlook, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 16.44 points to 8,106.66, after moving between 8,067.87 and 8,143.19, on turnover of NT$104.80 billion (US$3.38 billion).
A total of 1,680 stocks closed up and 1,975 were down, with 400 remaining unchanged.
TSMC to boost R&D 25 percent
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) will raise its spending on research and development (R&D) by 25 percent next year, company chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) said yesterday in Taipei. Spending will rise to US$1 billion next year, from US$800 million this year, he said. TSMC is the world’s largest contract chipmaker in terms of revenue.
Chimei facing US investigation
Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s largest LCD panel maker, will be investigated by a US International Trade Commission to determine if it violates patents owned by Technicolor’s Thomson Licensing SA. The commission said on Tuesday that it would look into the patent-infringement claims made in August by Thomson. A violation could result in a ban on imports of Chimei’s LCD panels, including ones with controllers made by Hsinchu-based chip designer MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體).
Shipping rates could drop
Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) said seasonal factors are likely to drive shipping rates for the industry worldwide in the current quarter slightly lower.
“Deliveries to meet demand for Christmas holidays had been made in the second and third quarter, and the industry is likely to experience a traditionally slower -season in the fourth quarter,” Yang Ming president Robert Ho (何樹生) said yesterday.
Science parks’ trade rises
The Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區) on Tuesday reported an increase of more than 50 percent in the value of its foreign trade in the third quarter of this year, as the economy continues to show signs of recovery.
The park recorded a combined trade value of more than NT$101.2 billion, a 52.7 percent increase from the same period last year, its administration said.
The park’s third-quarter export value reached more than NT$65.7 billion, while the value of its imports was NT$35.5 billion.
The optronics industry outperformed all the other industries in both exports and imports, followed by the semiconductor and precision machinery industries, the parks said.
New BOFT officials start Monday
Bill Cho (卓士昭) will start his new job as director-general of the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) on Monday, the bureau said yesterday. Cho, who has been serving as the nation’s representative to Kuwait, will return to Taipei on Sunday.
Chen Ming-shy (陳銘師), head of the economic and trade division of the representative office in Spain, will take over as the bureau’s deputy director-general on Monday as well.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar rose the most in a week after US Federal Reserve minutes showed policy makers were prepared to ease monetary policy “before long,” boosting appetite for riskier assets in Asia.
The NT dollar closed 0.4 percent higher at NT$30.96 against its US counterpart, according to Taipei Forex Inc. It was trading 0.8 percent stronger at NT$30.82 one minute before the central bank intervened to curb appreciation, traders said.
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