TAIEX hits 31-month high
Taiwan’s benchmark index closed higher yesterday, hitting a 31-month high, amid active rotational buying in a market awash in liquidity, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed up 38.38 points, or 0.43 percent, at 8,898.87, the highest level since May 22, 2008, after moving between 8,874.87 and 8,914.34, on turnover of NT$133.62 billion (US$4.47 billion).
“The gains were basically liquidity driven,” Concord Securities (康和證券) analyst Allen Lin said. “With ample funds on hand, investors tended to park their money in those stocks that have a rosy earnings outlook.”
HTC names new CFO
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone brand, named Winston Yung (容覺生) as its new chief financial officer, replacing H.M. Cheng (鄭慧明), according to a company statement released on Wednesday night.
Prior to joining HTC, Yung was the CFO for Shin Kong Financial Holding (新光金控) and had held key positions at McKinsey & Co in Hong Kong. Yung received a bachelor of social sciences with an economics major from the University of Hong Kong and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Cheng is retiring from HTC and will move into an advisory role for HTC’s board of directors.
Cathay reports purchase
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) bought real estate in Taipei for NT$685 million, parent Cathay Financial Holdings Co (國泰金控) said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Chinatrust approves MOU plan
Chinatrust Commercial Bank’s (中國信託商銀) board approved a plan to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Bank of China Ltd (中國銀行) on cooperation, the Taipei-based lender said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
The deal requires both Taiwanese and Chinese regulatory approval, according to the statement.
Epistar board approves sale
Epistar Corp’s (晶元光電) board approved a plan to sell up to US$280 million of zero-interest five-year overseas convertible bonds, the Hsinchu-based company said in an exchange statement yesterday.
The proceeds will be used to pay US dollar debts and buy factory equipment, according to the statement.
E-Ton Solar to sell bonds
Local solar cell maker E-Ton Solar Tech Co (益通光能) plans to sell up to NT$6 billion of convertible bonds, the company said in a statement yesterday.
It also plans to sell as many as 300 million shares to help repay debt and fund the purchase of equipment and raw material, the Tainan-based company said.
NT dollar up against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar rose before a report yesterday showed that industrial production climbed for a 15th month. It trimmed gains in the last minutes of trading on suspected intervention by the central bank.
The monetary authority bought the US dollar, according to two traders who declined to be identified as policymakers don’t usually disclose such details. Industrial production rose 19.4 percent last month from a year earlier, higher than the 12.5 percent economists estimated in a Bloomberg survey.
“The economy is doing well and that supports the [New] Taiwan dollar,” said Tarsicio Tong (湯健揚), a Taipei-based currency trader at Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行). “Volumes are thin these days,” he said.
The NT dollar appreciated 0.4 percent to close at NT$30.485 against its US counterpart yesterday, according to Taipei Forex Inc.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained