TAIEX climbs 0.81 percent
The TAIEX closed up 0.81 percent yesterday, with trading volume plunging to NT$54.29 billion (US$1.8 billion), its lowest level since Feb. 2, 2009.
The market opened up 101.68 points after the opening bell, sending the index to the day’s high of 7,002.09 before it fell below the psychological level of 7,000 points a short time after noon to close at 6,949.04 on weak trading volume.
The TAIEX closed up 55.74 points, boosted by a surge on Wall Street and in European markets on Friday, on turnover of NT$54.29 billion.
A total of 1,647 stocks closed up and 1,635 were down, with 507 remaining unchanged.
AGV stocks climb 1.13 percent
Shares of AGV Products Corp (愛之味), a Taiwanese drinks and food-product maker, climbed 1.13 percent to NT$8.94 yesterday after the company announced a share buyback scheme last week to prop up its flagging share prices.
In a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday, the company said it would repurchase 20 million shares, or 4 percent of total outstanding stock, for between NT$6.73 and NT$14.46 from yesterday through Feb. 10. The company would then transfer the repurchased shares to its employees, the statement said.
Yuanta, Polaris approve merger
The boards of Yuanta Investment Trust (元大投信) and Polaris Investment Trust (寶來投信) yesterday gave approval for a merger plan that is slated to go into effect on May 6, Yuanta said in a statement.
The merger will give the integrated firm, Yuanta Polaris Investment Trust, a market share of 17.6 percent, ahead of peers in the domestic market and ranking it as one of the world’s top 400 fund managers, the statement said.
The merger scheme will allow Polaris shareholders to swap each of their shares for 1.4388 shares in Yuanta, with the paid-in capital of Yunta Polaris standing at NT$2.27 billion, the statement said.
As of last month, assets under management at the two firms totaled NT$321.7 billion, the statement said.
Trendnet to build logistics hub
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has signed a letter of intent with Trendnet, a US-based network solution provider, for future investment in Taiwan, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday.
California-based Trendnet plans to set up a logistics hub in Taiwan to manage Asia-Pacific operations, with an initial capital of NT$150 million, the Economic Daily News reported.
The logistics hub will be based in either Greater Taichung or Greater Kaohsiung, the paper said, citing Ling Chia-yuh (凌家裕), a director-general of the ministry’s Department of Investment Services.
Bank of China follows mergers
Bank of China Ltd (中國銀行) “will pay attention to” merger and acquisition opportunities overseas as it follows Chinese corporate clients into new markets, Bank of China president Li Lihui (李禮輝) said after opening a branch in Japan.
China’s third-largest lender by total assets will also add branches in markets where it already has a presence, Li was quoted as saying in the transcript of an interview posted to the bank’s Web site yesterday. Bank of China sees further opportunities in Japan arising from trade between the two countries, Li said.
NT climbs against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.009 to close at NT$30.230.
Turnover totaled US$488 million during the trading session.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained