TAIEX climbs 0.47 percent
The TAIEX closed up 0.47 percent yesterday to end the day above 8,900 points after the high-tech sector staged a rebound from recent losses resulting from the impact of the rising New Taiwan dollar, dealers said.
The TAIEX index rose 41.56 points to 8,907.91, after moving between 8,871.01 and 8,920.79, on turnover of NT$128.15 billion (US$4.38 billion).
The market opened up 0.19 percent after Wall Street hit a fresh two-year high overnight and interest in the bellwether electronics sector emerged, in particular in late trade, as investors picked up bargains by taking advantage of high-tech stocks’ low valuations, the dealers said.
A total of 2,049 stocks closed up, 2,074 finished down and 437 remained unchanged.
Taishin signs MOU with bank
Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for cooperation with China’s Chengdu Rural Commercial Bank (成都農商銀行), Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), parent of the Taipei-based lender, said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Bank estimates NT$9bn profit
Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行) estimated this year’s pretax profit to be about NT$9 billion (US$309 million), the Taipei-based lender said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday, without giving a comparative figure.
Chunghwa Telecom signs MOU
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) signed an MOU with Inventec Co (英業達) to co-develop and promote cloud-computing services, the Taipei-based company said in an exchange statement yesterday.
Chunghwa Picture eyes China
Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) will set up a touch-panel manufacturing base in Fuzhou, China, with full production to commence by May next year, the Taoyuan-based company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Formosa running near capacity
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), Taiwan’s only publicly traded oil refiner, said it is using 98 percent to 99 percent of capacity at its three ethylene plants.
“We’re running at almost full capacity,” Lin Keh-yen (林克彥), a company spokesman, said by telephone yesterday.
The refiner expects to process an average of 460,000 barrels of crude a day this month and next month, he said.
Separately, Taipei-based China Man-Made Fiber Corp (中國人造纖維) plans to spend about NT$3 billion building an ethylene glycol plant, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Sony, Chimei settle dispute
Sony Corp, the world’s third-largest television maker, and Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子) settled their legal dispute over patents on LCD TVs and monitors, US court records showed on Tuesday.
“All pending patent litigations between the parties” have been settled, the companies said in a Dec. 16 notice to the US International Trade Commission in Washington. Terms weren’t disclosed.
Sony had targeted LCD monitors produced by Chimei for computer makers including Dell Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co. Chimei, Taiwan’s largest flat-panel screen maker, sued to halt the sale of Sony products including Bravia televisions.
ProMOS wins one year in loans
ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技), the nation’s No. 3 computer memorychip maker, said it has obtained approval from major credit banks to extend unspecified bank loans for another year, according to a company filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts