TAIEX continues downtrend
The TAIEX continued to fall yesterday on heavy selling, with tourism shares an exception thanks to the announcement of a new Taiwan-China tourist program on Sunday, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed down 124.87 points, or 1.41 percent, at 8,712.95, after moving between 8,703.52 and 8,811.97 on turnover of NT$98.346 billion (US$3.41 billion).
HTC plunges 6.87%
HTC Corp (宏達電) saw its shares fall again in trading yesterday after a report by UBS AG saying the company had cut its third-quarter order guidance for different models by about 1 million units.
The shares also took a beating from a report by Daiwa Securities Capital Markets Co that HTC had revised down its component procurement needs for the second and third quarters.
HTC fell 6.87 percent, near the maximum daily decline of 7 percent, to close at NT$1,085, extending its fall from the previous trading session on Friday.
Still, Daiwa advised in the note that investors should not “panic” and recommended buying the stock as its price weakens.
On Friday, Goldman Sachs cut its target price for HTC from NT$1,600 to NT$1,500 because of concerns about its tablet computer sales. As part of the downgrade, Goldman Sachs also removed HTC from its Asia-Pacific “conviction buy list.”
Cathay Pacific seeks Taiwanese
Taiwanese high school graduates can apply for flight attendant positions at Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, with interviews to be conducted in Taipei in August, a company spokesman said yesterday.
The spokesman said enthusiasm is the most important characteristic of a flight attendant, adding that other international carriers also only require a high school diploma.
Interviews will be conducted entirely in English, the spokesman said.
Other basic requirements for the position include a Republic of China passport, fluency in Chinese and English, at least 18 years of age and a minimum arm reach of 208cm.
Applicants who are selected will receive six weeks of training at the airline’s Hong Kong headquarters.
MOF mum on Chang Hwa posts
The Ministry of Finance (MOF) yesterday dismissed speculation about candidates to head Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) after several Chinese-language media reported that it would appoint Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) president Su Ler-ming (蘇樂明) to the position of chairman at Chang Hwa and Carol Lai (賴昭吟), a vice president at Chang Hwa, would be promoted to president.
Evergreen plans bond sale
Evergreen Construction Corp (長鴻營造) plans to sell US$10 million in five-year secured convertible bonds overseas in a private placement to help purchase raw materials abroad, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
FIT could boost housing market
The housing market could benefit from the free independent travelers (FIT) program for Chinese visitors by the second half of the year, a major real-estate agency said on Sunday.
Housing prices could reach international standards and attract more investments form foreign and domestic institutions, as well as wealthy buyers, Evertrust Rehouse (永慶房屋) head researcher Jeffry Huang (黃增福) said.
NT dollar falls slightly
The New Taiwan dollar fell NT$0.057 to close at NT$28.892 against the US dollar yesterday on turnover of US$1.012 billion.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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