Bargain hunters boost TAIEX
Bargain-hunting emerged yesterday, pushing the local bourse higher at the end of the session and helping the broader market fend off rising concerns over the global economy after the US released disappointing data overnight, dealers said.
After recent corrections, select large cap electronics stocks, such as smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) and camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光), attracted buying that helped the index rebound from the day’s low, dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 41.42 points, or 0.54 percent, at 7,700.95 on turnover of NT$87.93 billion (US$3.0 billion).
China Steel stays in the black
China Steel Corp (中鋼), the nation’s biggest steel producer, yesterday posted a second straight monthly pre-tax profit.
The stell producer said pre-tax profits plunged 81 percent to NT$708 million last month from a year earlier, according to the company’s filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The figure more than doubled from March’s NT$329 million in pre-tax profit.
Revenue shrank 7.69 percent year-on-year and 3.14 percent month-on-month to NT$19.46 billion last month.
Synnex sees revenue slide
Electronics retailer Synnex Corp (聯強國際) yesterday said its revenue slid 7 percent to NT$13.26 billion last month from NT$25.8 billion in the same period last year.
In the first four months, revenue fell 3.2 percent to NT$96.8 billion from NT$100 billion in the prior year.
Sales of PC-related products fell 12 percent to NT$15.08 billion year-on-year. PC-related products made up 55 percent of the company’s total revenue last month.
Honda hoping to boost sales
Honda Taiwan Co is hoping to boost its market share with the unveiling of its ninth-generation Honda Civic next month after regaining fourth spot in the market last month, a company executive said yesterday.
Akira Makino, who arrived in Taiwan last month to assume the post of Honda Taiwan chairman, said the company has already started taking orders for the new Honda Civic, which is scheduled to be unveiled on June 7.
At the beginning of last year, Honda was the fourth-largest brand in Taiwan, behind Toyota, Mitsubishi and Nissan.
It delivered 1,600 cars last month to regain its spot in the country’s automotive pecking order.
Female workforce static
The labor force participation rate of women in March remained at 50 percent for the ninth consecutive month, according to statistics published by the government on Thursday.
However, the participation rate of men was higher, standing at 66.7 percent, the figures from the Directorate-General of Budget Accounting and Statistics showed.
The total number of people in the labor force was 11.27 million people in March, with a labor force participation rate of 58.2 percent.
The female workforce constituted 4.75 million people in March, an increase of 2.1 percent from the same period last year.
The male workforce totaled 6.05 million, a slight increase of 1.3 percent compared with the same period last year.
NT dollar edges down
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, down NT$0.014 to close at NT$29.280 after the central bank intervened by buying the greenback, dealers said
Turnover totaled US$554 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
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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],”