TAIEX dips on eurozone crisis
Concerns over the eurozone debt crisis dragged the TAIEX lower yesterday to close at below 7,100 points, as selling focused on market heavyweights, dealers said.
Turnover continued to shrink as more investors stayed on the sidelines, watching closely whether European leaders would reach an agreement to issue euro bonds to solve the debt problems.
The benchmark index closed down 53.26 points, or 0.75 percent, at 7,071.63, after moving between 7,066.39 and 7,139.76. Turnover during the session totaled NT$54.50 billion (US$1.84 billion).
At the end of the session, the textile sector encountered the heaviest losses among the market’s eight largest sectors, finishing down 3.02 percent.
Manufacturing output drops
The output of the manufacturing sector declined in the first quarter from the same period last year, amid a stagnant global economy, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
In the January-March period, output totaled NT$3.09 trillion, down 6.1 percent from NT$3.29 trillion a year ago and down 3.34 percent from the previous quarter, data from the ministry showed.
Domestic trade fell 7.35 percent to NT$1.53 trillion, while exports dropped 4.85 percent to NT$1.56 trillion, the statistics showed.
Telecom products shine
The telecommunications sector was the star performer in the nation’s consumer technology product market in the first quarter — thanks to rising demand for smartphones, the market research firm GfK Group said on Thursday.
The overall value of the consumer technology product market was NT$61.39 billion in the first three months, up 6 percent from the previous three months and up 18.6 percent from a year earlier, according to a survey released by the Germany-based researcher.
The telecom sector continued to outpace other segments, recording sales of NT$15 billion in the first quarter, up 95 percent from the same period of last year.
Trade delegation visits UAE
A trade delegation visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday to strengthen bilateral trade ties.
The delegation comprises representatives from the Institute of Information Industry, the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association and the Export-Import Bank of the ROC and is being led by Chen Ming-shy (陳銘師), deputy director-general of Bureau of Foreign Trade.
Last year, the UAE was Taiwan’s 19th largest trade partner, with bilateral trade totaling US$5.86 billion, an increase of 17 percent from 2010, according to government statistics.
Exports to the UAE stood at US$1.58 billion last year, while imports from the gulf federation amounted to US$4.28 billion, the statistics showed.
Fubon gets new lease of life
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the nation’s second largest financial service provider by assets, yesterday updated the embedded value of its life insurance unit, Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽), to NT$176 billion (US$5.95 billion) as of the end of last year.
That figure represented a 13.18 percent increase from the figure seen a year earlier and translated into a NT$19.5 per share increase, company data showed.
Meanwhile, the insurer’s appraised value for 20-year premiums increased 12.88 percent to NT$423.4 billion.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.005 to close at NT$29.650.
Turnover totalled US$997 million during the trading session.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
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The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by