TAIEX falls 1.15 percent
The TAIEX closed down 1.15 percent yesterday led by the bellwether electronics sector, which extended losses amid lingering concern about the strong New Taiwan dollar, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 104.64 points to 9,006.82, on turnover of NT$145.30 billion (US$5.02 billion).
The market opened up 0.19 percent and moved to the day’s high on a mild technical rebound from the previous session, but pressure emerged, particularly in high-tech stocks, because of the continued appreciation of the local currency against the US dollar, dealers said.
CHT, HTC to team up
Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信), Taiwan’s largest telecoms operator, yesterday announced it signed a memorandum of understanding with HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone brand, to deepen partnership in the areas of customized applications, marketing campaigns and handset introductions.
CHT will offer more customized apps for HTC users, in addition to sharing marketing resources with HTC to promote both companies’ products and services, according to a joint statement.
CHT is set to roll out more HTC models this year to bundle with its subscription packages, the statement said.
China Steel sees profits fall
China Steel Corp (中鋼), the nation’s largest maker of the metal, reported unaudited pretax profit of NT$1.98 billion for last month, a decline of 18 percent from the previous month, the Kaohsiung-based company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Central bank denies report
The central bank denied a media report that it will resume measures to fight speculative capital inflows, it said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
The central bank will resume measures to combat “hot money,” including restrictions on offshore non-deliverable forwards, the Economic Daily News reported yesterday, without identifying where it obtained the information.
Local, Chinese banks cooperate
Shin Kong Commercial Bank (新光銀行) yesterday saud its board approved a plan to sign an agreement with China’s First Sino Bank (華一銀行) regarding personnel exchange and business cooperation.
The domestic lender, the banking subsidiary of Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), said it will ink the memorandum of understanding after it obtains approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission.
First Sino Bank, established in 1997 and headquartered in Pudong, Shanghai, is the first joint-venture bank between Taiwanese investors and a Chinese bank.
NT strengthens to 13-year high
The NT dollar strengthened to a 13-year high on speculation the central bank will raise interest rates to stem gains in consumer prices after China announced on Tuesday its third increase in four months.
The NT dollar pared the advance in late trading on suspected intervention by the central bank, according to two traders who declined to be identified because the bank doesn’t usually disclose such details.
“People are saying policy makers will follow China in raising interest rates,” said Tarsicio Tong (湯健揚), a Taipei-based currency trader at the Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行).
Taiwan’s dollar advanced 0.2 percent to end at NT$29.10 against its US counterpart, according to Taipei Forex Inc.
It gained as much as 1.4 percent to NT$28.755 earlier, the strongest level since October 1997. The currency was 1 percent stronger one minute ahead of the close.
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