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.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure