TAIEX loses almost 1 percent
The weak performance of high-tech stocks was blamed for the fall in the TAIEX yesterday, after Wall Street closed down on Friday and other Asian stock markets also declined, dealers said.
The TAIEX shed 83.70 points, or 0.96 percent, to end at 8,665.85 after moving between 8,633.55 and 8,749.55 on turnover of NT$96.998 billion (US$3.37 billion).
Among the eight major categories, construction stocks posted the biggest fall of the day, ending 1.6 percent lower, while the financial sector gained 0.1 percent.
Graduate vacancies set to rise
When new graduates join the labor market this summer, they will each have 2.8 jobs waiting for them, 104 Job Bank said yesterday.
The figure marks the highest ratio of job supply to job demand for the summer period in the past six years.
According to 104 Job Bank, the historic ratio of the number of jobs available for those with less than a year of work experience to the number of candidates for July was 2.30 in 2006, 1.90 in 2007, 1.37 in 2008, 0.93 in 2009 and 2.09 last year.
Regis Chen (陳力孑), 104 Job Bank’s marketing director, said despite abundant employment opportunities, new graduates still need to work hard to impress potential employers.
Chen said employers usually take no more than 21 seconds to decide whether to keep a jobseeker’s resume and call them in for an interview.
He urged new graduates to work on improving the content of their resumes and to take the initiative to apply for their ideal jobs.
Elpida to sell 57.3m shares
Elpida Memory Inc, the world’s third-largest maker of computer-memory chips, plans to raise ¥79.7 billion (US$987 million) selling shares and convertible bonds.
The chipmaker plans to sell 57.3 million new shares, equivalent to 27 percent of its outstanding stock, for about ¥52.2 billion by as early as July 25, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement. The company also plans to sell ¥27.5 billion in convertible bonds, with the interest rate being decided on Friday, it said.
Tokyo-based Elpida, bailed out by the government in 2009, plans to sell 18.3 million of the shares to local investors and as many as 39 million to overseas investors, according to the company.
Earlier this year, Elpida sold NT$4.26 billion of Taiwan Depositary Receipts to fund research and development. The company’s shares began trading in Taipei this year.
Acer, Compal post mixed data
Acer Inc (宏碁), one of the world’s top-three PC brands, yesterday posted NT$31.9 billion in unconsolidated sales last month, down 10.6 percent from May and a decline of 28 percent from the same month last year.
Its second-quarter unconsolidated sales were NT$96.1 billion, down 5.9 percent from the first quarter, the firm said in a statement.
Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), the world’s second-largest laptop contract maker, posted revenues of NT$57 billion last month.
This was a drop of 23 percent from same month last year, but an increase of 2.8 percent from May, according to a company statement.
Compal’s revenues for the first six months were NT$333.1 billion, down 24 percent from last year. It shipped 10.8 million to 10.9 million laptops in the second quarter, up 4.8 percent from 10.4 million in the first quarter.
NT dollar closes lower
The New Taiwan dollar fell against its US counterpart yesterday, down NT$0.071 to close at NT$28.866. Turnover totaled US$657 million during the trading session. The local unit opened at NT$28.805 and moved between NT$28.715 and NT$28.866 before 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