Asian stocks rose this week, with the regional benchmark index capping its biggest quarterly gain since 2010, after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said accommodative monetary policy was still needed. However, gains were limited amid concern that China’s economic slowdown is weighing on company earnings.
The TAIEX closed up 60.34 points, or 0.76 percent, at 7,933.00 on Friday on turnover of NT$99.02 billion (US$3.35 billion). The index dropped 2.3 percent last month, trimming gains in the past quarter to 12 percent, the best three-month performance since the period ending September 2010.
Meanwhile, shares in Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a unit of Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), retreated 1.3 percent to NT$114.50, the most since March 20. An -audit of Foxconn found “serious and -pressing” violations of Chinese labor laws. Inspectors found at least 50 breaches of Chinese regulations as well as the code of conduct Apple signed when it joined the Fair Labor Association in January after the deaths of workers at suppliers, the monitoring group said yesterday.
Despite that, Hon Hai rose 8 percent to NT$114.50 through the week as the firm announced fourth-quarter net income which climbed 64 percent to NT$35 billion surpassing each of the nine analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg, and the average of NT$26.6 billion.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.2 percent to 126.60 this week. The measure jumped 11 percent for the first three months this year, as US economic optimism and monetary easing in Europe, Japan and China fueled the fastest quarterly rally since September 2010.
Measures of volatility dropped across the region this week. The KOSPI 200 Volatility Index touched its lowest level since July last year the Hang Seng Index Volatility Index fell to a level not seen since August last year, on Tuesday.
The US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday that while he is encouraged by the unemployment rate’s decline to 8.3 percent, continued accommodative monetary policy would be needed to make further progress. Stocks gained the following day as some investors bet Bernanke’s comments indicate further policy easing is still under consideration.
Fed policymakers “still have an option of doing more, but I think it was just reinforcing the view that they are not going to reverse policy quickly,” said Stephen Halmarick, Sydney-based head of investment markets research at Colonial First State Global Asset Management, which oversees about US$150 billion. “There’s going to be a lot of liquidity provided for the market and economy. Obviously equity investors are taking it in a positive way.”
In other markets on Friday:
Manila rose 0.44 percent, or 22.49 points, to 5,107.73
Wellington gained 0.40 percent, or 14.11 points, to 3,509.55
Mumbai jumped 345.59 points, or 2.03 percent, to 17,404.2
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