TAIEX stages rebound
The TAIEX staged a technical rebound yesterday after the government’s National Stabilization Fund intervened to push the market’s benchmark index back above the 7,000-point mark, dealers said.
The government’s share-buying helped turnover rebound from a near three-year low on Monday, with buying focused on select large-cap stocks across the board, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 101.17 points, or 1.46 percent, at 7,053.38, after moving between 7,005.39 and 7,073.79, on turnover of NT$63.65 billion (US$2.10 billion).
Turnover on Monday was NT$50.47 billion, its lowest level since Jan. 20, 2009.
Government bonds rise
Taiwan’s government bonds rose after yields at a sale of five-year debt met traders’ expectations.
The government sold NT$40 billion (US$1.3 billion) of five-year notes at 1 percent, matching the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. That compared with a rate of 1.08 percent at an October sale of similar-maturity securities. Yesterday’s offer drew a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.13 times, the highest since 2010.
The yield on the 1 percent notes due in January 2017 fell one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 0.992 percent, prices from GRETAI Securities Market show. The rate rose as much as two basis points earlier.
Green Energy revenue declines
Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation’s top solar wafer maker, yesterday said revenue declined 15 percent last month to NT$881 million, from November’s NT$1.04 billion.
On an annual basis, last month’s revenue plunged 57 percent from NT$2.05 billion in 2010.
In the fourth quarter, the solar wafer maker accumulated NT$2.81 billion in revenue, exceeding the NT$2.3 billion forecast by the company in October.
Green Energy said last quarter it had almost consumed the inventory of raw material it bought at higher prices as scheduled, a strategy it adopted to save on costs to fend off the industrial slump.
Last year, Green Energy’s revenues fell 7.68 percent to NT$17.29 billion from NT$18.62 billion in 2010.
Advantech to buy Advansus
Industrial PC maker Advantech Co (研華科技) announced on Monday that it would spend NT$306 million to acquire a 50 percent stake in Advansus Corp (研碩), paying NT$17 for one share, in a move to expand its economies of scale.
Advansus is a joint venture formed in 2006 by Advantech and Pegatron Corp (和碩), one of Taiwan’s top contract makers of PCs, to jointly source components and designs of motherboards.
Advantech said the purchase, which will make Advansus a 100 percent-owned subsidiary, would help it prepare for cross-sector integration in the industry.
Bad loan ratio drops
The nation’s bad loan ratio dropped to 0.45 percent at NT$97.2 billion (US$3.21 billion) at the end of November, from 0.46 percent at NT$98.4 billion a month earlier, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday.
Of the 37 domestic lenders, only Cosmos Bank (萬泰銀行), the nation’s largest cash-card issuer, had a bad loan ratio above the 2 percent threshold, at 7.71 percent, the commission said.
The banking sector’s outstanding loans totaled NT$21.39 trillion in November, up NT$92.4 billion from one month earlier, it said.
NT dollar up against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US currency yesterday, adding NT$0.021 to close at NT$30.294.
Turnover totaled US$490 million during the trading session.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six