TAIEX slides 2.44 percent
The TAIEX extended its loss yesterday after investors took cues from steep declines suffered by European markets amid concerns about a stagnant global economy and eurozone debt, dealers said.
Market sentiment has been particularly undermined by disappointing data for last month’s US non-farm payroll released on Friday, which continued to drag down the local bourse, they said.
The TAIEX closed down 184.38 points or 2.44 percent, at 7,367.19, after moving between 7,357.76 and 7,522.94, on turnover of NT$106.06 billion (US$3.64 billion).
Venture capital firms approved
Local financial institutions may set up venture capital management firms in China to help gather information and locate investment targets, the Financial Supervisory Commission said in a statement yesterday.
The deregulation would give domestic banking firms an extra option when expanding in China and boost overall profitability, the commission said.
Taiwanese parent firms must own at least a 25 percent stake in the new venture capital management companies in China and limit their business to generating fee income by gathering information and locating investment opportunities, it said.
Taiwan, Japan to join forces
Taiwan has been planning to forge a business partnership with Japan aimed at strengthening their position in China and other Asian markets, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration plans to establish an industrial park in Taiwan exclusively to house Japan’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), where Japanese companies can take advantage of Taiwan’s relatively lower business taxes and overhead costs to facilitate entering China and other Asian markets, the daily reported.
Taiwan will provide Japanese SMEs with business consultation, simplify administrative procedures for the businesses and provide them with interpreters to help them overcome the language barrier, it reported.
China Steel shows lower profits
China Steel Corp (中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, reported pretax profits of NT$1.83 billion for last month, 39 percent lower than a year earlier, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange Tuesday.
Ilitek sales increase
ILI Technology Corp (Ilitek, 奕力科技), a supplier of driver integrated circuits for TFT panel use, on Monday posted better-than-expected sales of NT$1.05 billion for last month, up 54.3 percent month-on-month.
Last month’s figures represented the highest monthly sales level in the company’s history and the first time they exceeded NT$1 billion, data showed.
Formosa Chemical sells bonds
Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化纖) sold NT$4 billion in five-year bonds at an interest rate of 1.38 percent to help meet fund demand and improve financial structure, the company said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
NT falls versus greenback
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, down NT$0.041 to close at NT$29.112 as the greenback extended momentum in regional markets in reflection of a weakening euro amid concerns about the debt problems in the eurozone, dealers said.
Further sell-offs in the local bourse added downward pressure on the NT dollar as foreign institutional buyers kept unloading shares across the board, they said.
Turnover totaled US$765 million during the trading session.
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