TAIEX finishes down 0.38%
The TAIEX plunged 87.7 points in morning trading yesterday, but managed to close above the 8,500 mark despite a low turnover volume, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed down 32.67 points or 0.38 percent to 8,500.16, after moving between 8,433.46 and 8,519.21, on turnover of NT$88.938 billion (US$3.08 billion).
Cement shares posted the biggest gains of the day, ending 1.6 percent higher. Food shares added 0.1 percent.
However, the paper and pulp sector suffered the heaviest losses, finishing down 0.8 percent.
Construction shares lost 0.6 percent, machinery and electronics also fell 0.6 percent, the financial sector dropped 0.2 percent, textiles edged down 0.2 percent and the plastics and chemicals sector was down 0.1 percent.
Meanwhile, transport stocks closed 0.4 percent higher because of the expected increase in cross-strait flights later this year and falling international oil prices.
However, electronics lost 0.66 percent because of concerns about weaker demand in the second half of this year.
SinoPac China office approved
Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行), a subsidiary of SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控), received approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission and the China Banking Regulatory Commission in Beijing to set up a representative office in Nanjing, it said in a statement yesterday.
Local banks eye China deals
The boards of First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) and Jih Sun Securities Co (日盛證券), the banking and securities units of state-run First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) and Jih Sun Financial Holding Co (日盛金控) respectively, yesterday approved their plans to sign cooperation agreements with their Chinese peers, according to separate filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
First Commercial Bank will enter into cooperation with China Merchants Bank (招商銀行), while Jih Sun Securities will join force with BOCI International China Ltd (中銀國際證券) for business and financial cooperation, the filings said.
The agreements still need approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission.
Mega Bank opens in Abu Dhabi
Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀), the banking arm of state-run Mega Financial Holdings Co (兆豐金控), yesterday opened a branch in Abu Dhabi to boost its presence abroad, the lender said in a statement.
The branch is Mega Bank’s 32nd foreign outlet and is intended to serve Taiwanese firms based in the United Arab Emirates’ second-largest city, the statement said.
HSBC partners with SABB
HSBC Holdings PLC, Europe’s biggest bank, will merge its Saudi Arabian wholesale and investment banking business with Saudi British Bank’s SABB Securities, it said yesterday.
SABB would own 51 percent of the new entity, to be known as HSBC Saudi Arabia, but HSBC would retain full management control, HSBC said in a statement posted on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
The merger was subject to regulatory approval and was expected to complete by the end of this year, HSBC added.
The partnership will be a full service investment bank in Saudi Arabia undertaking asset management, advisory and debt capital market activities among other services, HSBC said.
NT dollar falls against US dollar
The New Taiwan dollar fell against its US counterpart yesterday, down NT$0.048 to close at NT$29.010. Turnover totaled US$621 million during the trading session.
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained