TAIEX haunted by tech gloom
The TAIEX closed down 0.12 percent yesterday after a tug-of-war between rotational buying of select old economy stocks and selling of high-tech sector shares, which were haunted by gloom over the industry’s earnings outlook, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 10.15 points to 8,205.30, after moving between 8,184.29 and 8,242.77, on turnover of NT$124.70 billion (US$4.07 billion).
The weighted index opened flat, rising 1.42 points after a lackluster performance on Wall Street overnight. A total of 2,393 stocks closed down, 1,570 finished up and 290 remained unchanged.
Strong NT dollar hurts UMC
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the nation’s second-largest custom manufacturer of chips, said a rising New Taiwan dollar would negatively impact its profitability.
Every 1 percent rise in the NT dollar against the US currency would reduce its gross margin, or sales less cost of goods sold, by 0.5 percentage points based on the average rate over a quarter, Richard Yu (于恆祥), head of investor relations, said in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday.
UMC on Aug. 4 forecast that gross margin for the third quarter would be in the “low 30 percent range,” compared with 29.6 percent in the prior quarter.
Nanya sets share issue price
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) set the price at NT$16.5 for a planned offering of 600 million new shares, the Taoyuan-based chipmaker said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Game publisher inks deal
Taiwan’s online game publisher Chinese Gamer International Corp (中華網龍) signed a deal with China Information Broadcast Network Co (中廣亞廣播信息網絡) on Wednesday in Beijing to pave the way for the launch of its popular Emperor Online game in China.
China Information is paying an unspecified sum to Chinese Gamer to distribute Emperor Online in China. The game is developed based on the popular comic with the same title by Tony Wong (黃玉郎).
Meanwhile, rival Gameflier International Corp (遊戲新幹線), a subsidiary of Softworld International Entertainment Corp (智冠科技), announced on Thursday that it had gained the license from Japan’s Rosso Index to distribute Master of Epic Online in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and China.
The game will be available for closed beta testing by Taiwanese gamers at the end of this month, the statement said.
Formosa restarts Mailiao units
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) has restarted all three of its crude units in Mailiao (麥寮) after shutting them in July because of a fire. The third crude distillation unit resumed production yesterday, company spokesman Lin Keh-yen (林克彥) said by phone.
The Mailiao refinery’s crude distillation units are each able to process 180,000 barrels a day. The company shut the 540,000 barrels-a-day plant for safety reasons after an oil leak triggered a fire at its No. 2 residue desulfurization unit on July 25.
The refiner has completed repairing its No. 1 ethylene plant and is waiting for government approval to restart the unit, Lin said.
NT dollar posts weekly gain
The New Taiwan dollar completed a seventh straight weekly advance, the longest stretch of gains since June last year, as investors bought higher-yielding assets in Asia on speculation the US Federal Reserve is set to loosen monetary policy.
It reached NT$30.540 on Thursday, its strongest level since July 2008.
The currency closed 0.1 percent weaker yesterday at NT$30.793.
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
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