TAIEX little changed
The TAIEX closed little changed yesterday after strong technical pressure ahead of the key 9,000- point mark reversed early gains posted by follow-through buying from the previous session, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 3.07 points to 8,972.51, on turnover of NT$103.25 billion (US$3.56 billion).
“Investors remained wary in the face of the stiff technical resistance at around 9,000 points after the market repeatedly failed to stand above that level in recent sessions,” Hua Nan Securities (華南永昌投顧) analyst Henry Miao (苗台生) said.
Although Intel posted better-than-expected quarter results, many investors remained reluctant to chase prices after the market rose in early morning trade, Miao said.
“The local semiconductor sector has appeared resilient in recent sessions as the market widely expected Intel’s rosy results,” Miao said.
“That particular positive factor has pretty much been reflected in share prices,” he said. “Now, investors are nervous, waiting for more results reports on Wall Street.”
HTC investing in Shanghai F-road
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 4 smartphone brand, yesterday said it was planning to invest US$5.5 million in Shanghai F-road Commerce Service Co (上海方付通商務服務) through subsidiary HTC HK Ltd.
Shanghai F-road is a mobile application developer that tailor-makes apps for financial institutions to offer mobile financial services on smartphones. These apps include mobile banking, finances top-up, and mobile payment, according to its Web site.
Highwealth buys Kaohsiung land
Highwealth Construction Corp (興富發建設) spent NT$971 million to buy a piece of land in Kaohsiung from King’s Town Construction Co (京城建設), Highwealth said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Power plant startup delayed
Taiwan Power Co (台電) may delay the startup of its No. 4 nuclear power plant by a year to around the end of next year because of cable problems, public relations officer Huang Huei-yu (黃惠予) said by phone yesterday.
Vending machine reads faces
A face-recognizing vending machine developed in Taiwan is able to offer hair-growing tonic to balding men and razors to people with beards, one of the inventors said yesterday.
The vending machine, from Taipei-based Innovative DigiTech-Enabled Applications and Services Institute (資策會創新服務研究所), is equipped with a camera that reads the faces of shoppers and then suggests products according to their gender and age.
NT dollar rises for seventh week
The New Taiwan dollar rose for a seventh week, the longest streak since October, on speculation investors would increase holdings of the nation’s assets as growth accelerates.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said last month that GDP probably increased more than 10 percent last year. The currency reached a 13-year high yesterday and was 2 percent stronger a minute before the close, before ending little changed on suspected central bank intervention.
“All central banks are on the alert,” said Tarsicio Tong (湯健揚), a Taipei-based currency trader at Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行).
Authorities “will let the Taiwan dollar appreciate, but not too fast,” he said.
The NT dollar rose 0.7 percent this week to NT$29.600 against the US dollar, according to Taipei Forex Inc. It reached NT$29.006 yesterday, the highest level since October 1997.
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