TAIEX falls 1.89%
The TAIEX closed down 1.89 percent yesterday, falling below the 8,900-point mark, as institutional selling focused on the financial sector to lock in recent gains, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 170.26 points to 8,836.56, on turnover of NT$146.34 billion (US$5.06 billion). After dumping the bellwether electronics sector and old economy stocks over the past few sessions, institutional investors shifted their selling to financial firms amid signs that foreign investors have stared moving funds from the region back to the US and Europe, dealers said.
Asset Management (台壽保投信) analyst Arch Shih (施博元) said the financial sector, which had gained sharply amid optimism toward increasing business exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, was hit hard.
The financial sector suffered the heaviest losses, ending down 3.84 percent.
Ruen Chen files for share transfer
Ruen Chen Investment Holding Co (潤成投資), the winning bidder to acquire Nan Shan Life insurance Co (南山人壽) from American International Group (AIG), has filed a share transfer application, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
The Taiwanese consortium inked a deal on Jan. 12 with AIG to buy its 97.57 percent stake in the local insurer for US$2.16 billion in cash.
Largan revenue up 64.4%
Largan Precision Co (大立光), Taiwan’s largest handset camera lens maker, said in a statement yesterday that its revenue was NT$1.2 billion last month, down 8.4 percent from December, but up 64.4 percent from the same month last year.
The company last month predicted that revenue in the first quarter would be down from the fourth amid seasonality factors and fewer working days during Lunar New Year holiday, but said the decline would be less than 18 percent.
BOT Shanghai upgrade approved
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday approved the state-owned Bank of Taiwan (BOT, 台灣銀行) to upgrade its representative office in Shanghai, China, into a branch.
The move came after the lender, the banking arm of Taiwan Financial Holding Co (台灣金控), set up the representative office for more than one year, therefore qualified for the upgrade under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, the commission said.
Bank of Taiwan aims first to serve Taiwanese firms in Shanghai and turn profitable in the first year so that it can qualify to apply for operating business in Chinese yuan.
SinoPac, ICBC create yuan bond
SinoPac Securities Asia Ltd (永豐金證券), a Hong Kong unit of SinoPac Financial Holding Co (永豐金控), yesterday joined forces with ICBC International (工銀國際), a Hong Kong subsidiary of China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (中國工商銀行), in creating a bond denominated in Chinese yuan.
The bond marked the latest act of cooperation between financial firms across the Taiwan Strait, a joint statement said. A Hong Kong subsidiary of Yuen Foong Yu Paper Manufacturing Co (永豐餘造紙), a Taiwan-listed firm, is in charge of launching the three-year note, the statement said.
NT dollar drops 0.1%
The New Taiwan dollar weakened 0.1 percent to NT$29.120 against its US counterpart, according to Taipei Forex Inc. The currency was 0.6 percent stronger one minute before the close of trading and erased gains on suspected intervention by the central bank, according to two traders who declined to be identified as the monetary authority doesn’t disclose such details.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six