TAIEX drops on US fears
Fears of a slowing US economy undermined market sentiment on the local bourse yesterday, sending the TAIEX into a tailspin, as investors ignored the passage of a bill in the House of Representatives to raise the US debt ceiling overnight, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed down 116.66 points, or 1.34 percent, at 8,584.72, after moving between 8,557.70 and 8,629.09, on turnover of NT$126.5 billion (US$4.38 billion).
Central bank selling NCDs
The central bank yesterday said it will sell NT$100 billion in 364-day negotiable certificates of deposit (NCDs) on Friday to absorb idle funds from the market.
This will be the 17th auction of 364-day NCDs by the bank since April last year, as the local market has been awash in liquidity with foreign institutional investors moving massive funds into the region.
The central bank, which now has NT$1.2 trillion in outstanding 364-day NCDs, said the sale of the instruments since last April was the equivalent of increasing bank reserve requirements by 4.55 percentage points.
‘Luxury tax’ effective: official
The launch of the “luxury tax” on selective goods and services has been effective in curbing property speculation, Deputy Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) said yesterday.
The number of transactions of properties resold within two years of purchase has totaled only 168 nationwide over the past two months since the tax took effect on June 1, Chang said at the Legislative Yuan.
The shrinking number indicates that the tax has deterred property speculators, he said.
Wintek revenue rises 16%
Wintek Corp (勝華), which supplies touch panels to Apple Inc, yesterday reported the strongest monthly revenues in eight months for last month.
Revenues expanded 16.39 percent to NT$8.56 billion last month from NT$7.36 billion in June, and increased 61 percent from NT$5.29 billion a year earlier, the company said.
Wintek’s revenues are expected to increase by 27.5 percent this quarter to NT$27.8 billion, from 21.8 billion in the second quarter, on the back of rising order to supply touch panels used in Apple’s iPad 2, JPMorgan said last week.
Hotai posts record earnings
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), a local dealer of Toyota and Lexus cars, on Monday posted record first-half pre-tax earnings of NT$4.08 billion (US$141.61 million), up 9 percent from a year earlier, despite being limited by the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
“The first-half profit was the highest since the company was established” 64 years ago, the company said in a statement.
Hotai Motor sold 13,087 units last month for a market share of 34 percent in Taiwan.
In the first seven months, the company sold 68,538 vehicles, up 115 percent year-on-year.
Bank SinoPac, NPC launch card
Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行), a subsidiary of SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控), joined forces on Monday with National Petroleum Corp (NPC, 全國加油站) to launch a credit card that will save cardholders NT$3.4 for each liter of gasoline purchased at NPC’s stations.
The offer, equivalent to about a 10 percent price cut, is valid until the end of the year.
National Petroleum has 116 stations nationwide.
NT dollar declines
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, down NT$0.042 to close at NT$28.880.
Turnover totaled US$897 million during the trading session, compared with US$767 million on Monday.
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],”
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
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