Spain bailout lifts TAIEX
The TAIEX rose 1.72 percent yesterday, led by electronics stocks, after eurozone countries agreed to lend Spain up to US$125 billion to shore up its teetering banks.
The weighted index ranged between a high of 7,137.98 and a low of 7,081.72 before closing up 120.58 points at 7,120.23 on turnover of NT$65.21 billion (US$2.18 billion).
A total of 2,612 stocks closed up and 1,378 finished down, while 332 remained unchanged.
All of the market’s eight major stock categories closed up, with the financial sector netting the highest gain at 1.94 percent.
Scandal sees ASE shares fall
Shares in Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光), the world’s largest chip packager, dropped 1.7 percent to NT$25.60, the lowest close since Jan. 2, after company employees and their family members were questioned over the weekend for their alleged involvement in insider trading during ASE’s 2009 takeover of Universal Scientific Industrial Co (環隆電氣).
The Greater Kaohsiung-based company said on Saturday in an exchange filing that the investigation was not related to company operations and it had no knowledge of any alleged illegal activities.
Yageo sales up in China, EU
Taiwanese passive components service provider Yageo Corp (國巨) yesterday reported that consolidated sales rose 2.6 percent to NT$2.18 billion last month from April, but were down 0.9 percent from the same period a year ago.
The company’s accumulated sales in the first five months dropped 11.6 percent to NT$9.87 billion from NT$11.16 billion in the same period last year.
Yageo said sales increased in the Greater China region and in Europe last month from April, but slowed in the North American and Asia-Pacific regions.
Taiwan-Vietnam trade summit
A seminar on Taiwan-Vietnam bilateral trade ties will be held on June 26 in an effort to boost investment in Vietnam.
Taiwanese investments in Vietnam have fallen in recent years due to sluggish global demand and changes in Vietnam’s investment climate, according to the Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research, organizer of the seminar.
Taiwan remains the biggest importer of Vietnamese workers in the world and is also the third-largest economy that makes direct investments in Vietnam.
Science park expansion passed
The Council for Economic Planning and Development yesterday approved an expansion for the Central Taiwan Science Park project (中部科學園區) in Greater Taichung.
Development costs for the project, which is expected to be completed in 2015, would total NT$6.73 billion (US$224.9 million), the council said.
The expansion would create 7,000 jobs, with total annual output value expected to reach NT$200 billion, the council said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s top contract chipmaker, is investing NT$400 billion to construct an 18-inch wafer fab at the park in 2014, a science park official added.
Yang Ming launches new ship
Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運), the nation’s second-largest container shipper in terms of fleet scale, yesterday said a new vessel is scheduled to begin service on Wednesday next week.
YM Uniformity (結明輪), an 8,626 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) full-container vessel built by CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船), was delivered yesterday.
The vessel will be deployed on Yang Ming’s Asia-North European route, along with three other new 8,600-TEU container ships.
NT dollar up against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.056 to close at NT$29.92.
Turnover totaled US$671 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
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],”