Potential rate hike spurs TAIEX
The TAIEX closed up 0.70 percent yesterday, led by the financial sector on hopes that rising interest rates would widen interest rate spreads and boost banks’ earnings, dealers said.
The index rose 62.91 points to close at 8,988, after moving between 8,887.03 and 9,003.45, on turnover of NT$129.19 billion (US$4.45 billion).
The market opened down 0.39 percent and moved to the day’s low on follow-through selling from the previous session, but bargain hunting emerged.
A total of 2,339 stocks closed up, 1,978 finished down and 426 were unchanged.
Epistar to sell five-year bonds
Epistar Corp (晶電) plans to sell as much as US$280 million in five-year convertible bonds, a person familiar with the matter said, adding that the sale could push through by yesterday.
Barclays PLC is managing the sale of the zero-coupon bonds, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the details were private.
Investors can hand the notes over for stock if Epistar’s shares rise between about 25 percent and 30 percent, the person said.
Investors have the right to sell the bonds back to the company after three years, the person said.
Yieh Phui to invest NT$500m
Yieh Phui Enterprise Co (燁輝), the nation’s largest manufacturer of galvanized steel, approved a plan to invest NT$500 million in a steel unit, the company said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
Hua Nan plans China bases
Hua Nan Financial Holdings Co (華南金控) said on Monday it was planning to set up three bases in China over the next three years.
Aside from establishing its first base in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, Hua Nan Financial chairman Wang Rong-jou (王榮周) said the company was looking at the Yangtze River Delta, Fujian Province, Bohai Bay and Sichuan Province as possible locations for the two other bases.
Wang said Hua Nan would likely finalize the location of the second base by the end of next year. He added that the company had made business expansion in China a priority in its development plans for the next five years.
Chunghwa buys equipment
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s largest telecom services operator, bought NT$530 million worth of network equipment from Taiwan International Standard Electronics Ltd (台灣國際標準電子) yesterday, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Some herbal drugs unsafe
Eleven out of 144 samples of Chinese herbal medicines tested by China Medical University last year failed to pass safety checks, an expert said yesterday.
Among the 11 samples, six were found to contain steroids, two contained heavy metals and mercury was detected in one of the samples, assistant professor Yu Chien-chih (余建志) said.
About 90 percent of the ingredients in Chinese herbal medicines sold in Taiwan is imported from China, amounting to 4.4 tonnes per year, Yu said.
As such, the safety of Chinese medicines was one of the most important aspects of the medical cooperation pact that Taiwan signed last year with China, Yu said.
He advised people to exercise caution when buying Chinese medicine, choosing those that carry the GMP safety logo and consulting a qualified doctor before taking the medicine.
Residues of heavy metals and pesticides could cause anemia, acute renal failure and problems in the nervous and digestive systems, Yu said.
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