TAIEX dips on profit taking
The TAIEX closed down 0.42 percent yesterday on profit taking from a previous session as investors took cues from a lackluster performance on Wall Street overnight, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 37.77 points to 8,861.10, after moving between 8,861.01 and 8,911.41, on turnover of NT$120.77 billion (US$120.04).
A total of 2,911 stocks closed down and 1,278 up, while 348 remained unchanged.
First Commercial inks deal
First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) signed an agreement for cooperation on financial business with Bank of China Ltd (中國銀行), parent First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The agreement came after Chinatrust Commercial Bank’s (中國信託商銀) board on Thursday approved a plan to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese bank on cooperation.
Mega International Commercial Bank Co’s (兆豐國際商銀) board on Wednesday approved plans to cooperate with the Chinese lender on syndicated loans, factoring and personnel training.
Hota gets loan deal
Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co (和大工業) got a seven-year NT$1.5 billion loan from a group of lenders to help repay debt and boost working capital, Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
Acer wins design awards
Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s No. 3 PC brand, yesterday said it bagged four coveted prizes at Germany’s 2011 iF product design awards with the Acer Aspire 8943G notebook, Acer C20 pico palm-sized projector, Packard Bell EasyNote Butterfly notebook as well as the 23-inch high-definition Gateway FHD2303L LED monitor.
Of these winning products, the Acer Aspire 8943G — a notebook that uses Dolby home theater solutions and has an aluminum magnesium cover and keyboard — has won three other major awards, namely Japan Good Design, Computex Taipei Design & Innovation Gold and Computex Best Choice.
The Gateway FHD2303L also received a Japan Good Design award.
Techvest in share buy-up
Taiwan PCB Techvest Co (志超科技), a local supplier of electronic components and printed circuit boards, agreed to buy as much as NT$250 million of Yeu Hwan Technology Corp (宇環科技) shares in a private placement, Taiwan PCB said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
Evergreen in executive reshuffle
Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) named company president Wang Chung-jinn (王宗進) as vice chairman, replacing Jack Yen (顏火燿), effective on Jan. 1, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Anchor Chang (張正鏞), chief executive vice president, has been promoted to Wang’s former position, the company said in a separate statement.
Wal-Mart invests in 360buy
Chinese online retailer 360buy Jingdong Mall (京東商城) received more than US$500 million from investors including Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, the China Business News reported yesterday, citing the company’s CEO Li Qiangdong (劉強東).
NT dollar holds steady
The New Taiwan dollar closed unchanged at NT$30.485 against the US dollar yesterday.
Dealers said Taiwan’s central bank intervened in the local foreign exchange market again in late trade. Turnover totaled US$628 million during the trading session.
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