TAIEX takes 2.02% hit
The nation’s benchmark index extended losses across the board yesterday from the previous session on rising fears that the European debt crisis contagion would spread to Italy, dealers said.
The bellwether electronics sector led the slide with selling focusing on large cap high-tech stocks on lingering concerns over slowing global demand in the third quarter of this year, they said.
Electronics’ losses also reflected a dive on the high-tech oriented NASDAQ and Philadelphia Semiconductor Index overnight amid cautious sentiment toward the market’s outlook, they said.
The TAIEX fell 174.84 points, or 2.02 percent, to 8,491.01, after moving between 8,479.90 and 8,595.07, on turnover of NT$113.69 billion (US$3.93 billion).
‘Modern housing’ site moving
The government plans to move the construction project of one of its two low-cost “modern housing” sites to a state-owned lot close to MRT Qizhang Station in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Sindian District (新店), instead of its preliminary selection in Sansia District (三峽), the Council for Economic Planning and Development said yesterday.
“The council decided to change the unit’s location, as the MRT station in Sansia may not yet be in operation in 2013, when the project is expected to be introduced,” CEPD Deputy Minister Hwang Wang-hsiang (黃萬翔) said.
The other unit would still be built near MRT Dingpu Station, which is currently being constructed in Tucheng District (土城), as per the government’s previous selection, the council said, adding that the project would be introduced at the same time as the station’s scheduled completion in 2013.
Taiwan Mobile unit gets raise
The board of local fixed-line service provider Taiwan Fixed Networks Corp (台灣固網) yesterday approved a proposed increase of NT$900 million in capital spending for this year, parent company Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) said in a statement submitted to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Taiwan Fixed Networks plans to use the capital on building data centers and boosting network deployment, the statement said.
Following the approval, this year’s capital spending will expand to NT$2.1 billion.
Energy consumption falls
Taiwan’s energy consumption fell 0.07 percent in May from a year earlier, the Bureau of Energy said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Coal imports rose 16 percent to 6.55 million tonnes, while imports of liquefied natural gas dropped 1.54 percent to 1.37 billion cubic meters, the bureau said.
China reserves up to US$3.2tn
China’s foreign reserves have soared to about US$3.2 trillion as Beijing intervened in currency markets to control its yuan despite pledges to allow more flexibility.
The reserves rise as Beijing buys foreign currency to counter upward pressure on the yuan’s exchange rate because of an influx of export revenues and investment.
The reserves rose 30.3 percent over a year earlier to US$3,197.5 billion as of the end of last month, the central bank said in a quarterly report released yesterday. That was an increase of US$157 billion over the past three months.
NT dollar falls on outflows
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, down NT$0.132 to close at NT$28.998 on fund outflows as the local bourse took a beating, dealers said.
A weakening euro also led most Asian currencies to trend down against the greenback amid rising concerns over the eurozone debt crisis, they said.
Turnover totaled US$1.139 billion during the trading session, up from US$657 million the
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