TAIEX rises above 7,000 mark
The TAIEX staged a technical rebound yesterday from heavy losses seen a session earlier and closed above the psychological 7,000-point mark as investors embraced hopes that an upcoming summit of the European Commission can figure out a solution to the debt crisis in the region, dealers said.
Buying on the local bourse focused on select large cap stocks in the petrochemical, food and flat panel sectors, prompting the market to suspect the government stepped in to lend support during trade to help the market return to the 7,000-point level, they said.
The TAIEX rose 76.72 points or 1.1 percent to close at 7,033.00 points, after moving between 6,992.27 and 7,046.39, on turnover of NT$76.43 billion (US$2.53 billion).
Chinatrust profits up
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), the nation’s third-largest financial services provider, posted NT$2.38 billion (US$78.86 million) in net profit last month, more than double the earnings one month earlier, thanks to successful investments and growing income from fees, the company said in a statement yesterday.
The bank-centric conglomerate also benefited from its recent acquisition of MetLife Taiwan Life Insurance Co (大都會人壽), which generated a NT$258 million profit, the statement said.
For the first 11 months, net income totaled to NT$17.76 billion, translating into NT$1.57 earnings per share, the statement said.
Chinatrust Commercial Bank’s (中國信託商銀) bad loan ratio dropped to 0.33 percent last month, from 0.36 percent in October, while the coverage ratio rose to 357.74 percent from 327.08 percent, it said.
Mobile payment on horizon
Taiwan’s largest telecoms operator plans to team up with the metro card operating company and Mastercard to offer a new service that would allow customers to use their handsets as credit/debit cards.
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said yesterday it would team up with Easycard Corp (悠遊卡公司) and MasterCard Paypass to introduce a mobile payment service — a method of payment that is common in Japan.
However, initially, the service would be available only to iPhone4/4S users. The phone would be encased in an Easy, Near Field Communication (NFC) and Paypass cover, which can be used to pay metro fares and purchase goods, Chunghwa said.
Chunghwa said it hopes handset manufactures would allow the insertion of a mobile payment chip in the future to provide customers with a more convenient service.
Acer confident on outlook
PC brand Acer Inc (宏碁) intends to ship 10 percent more notebook computers next year and remain profitable thanks to sales of ultra--thin laptops and demand from emerging markets, chief executive officer and chairman J.T. Wang (王振堂) said yesterday.
Wang told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview that the company’s strategy to expand market share would now focus more on improving profit margins rather than low prices.
Powertech files lawsuit
Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技), the nation’s biggest computer memorychip packager, filed a declaratory action and breach of contract lawsuit in the US District Court, Northern District of California, against Tessera Technologies Inc, the Taiwan-based company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
NT dollar makes gains
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar yesterday, rising NT$0.057 to close at NT$30.168.
Turnover totaled US$444 million during the trading session.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to