TAIEX closes above 7,400
The TAIEX closed above the 7,400-point level yesterday for the first time in nearly two months on hopes that major central banks will lower interest rates to spark the fragile global economy, dealers said.
Large cap stocks in both the high-tech and old economy sectors attracted buying interest because of what investors saw as relatively low valuations following a recent period of consolidation, they said.
The weighted index closed up 73.20 points, or 1 percent, at 7,418.36 — the highest close since May 11 — after moving between 7,357.67 and 7,431.70, on turnover of NT$77.06 billion (US$2.58 billion).
In trading yesterday, food shares scored the highest gains among the eight major sectors of the market, finishing up 2.1 percent.
Warrants issued on 1,009 stocks
Securities companies issued warrants on 1,009 underlying stocks last month, compared with 1,242 in May, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said yesterday.
Yuanta Securities (元大證券) issued warrants on 169 underlying stocks, the largest number, followed by SinoPac Securities (永豐金證券) with 107, KGI Securities (凱基證券) with 100, Fubon Securities (富邦證券) with 91 and Capital Securities (群益證券) with 75, the TWSE said. The value of the warrants issued totaled NT$16.85 billion (US$564 million), compared with NT$21.16 billion recorded in May, the exchange said.
FSC approves yuan bonds
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday approved plans to allow local listed firms to issue yuan bonds overseas to fund expansions in China.
The commission also encouraged local lenders’ offshore banking units (OBUs) to purchase such corporate bonds to better utilize yuan deposits. Yuan deposits total 13.84 billion yuan (US$604.52 million) as of the end of May, the commission said.
The opening is intended to help meet capital needs of Taiwanese firms with cross-strait operations and boost profitability among OBUs, the regulator said, adding that proceeds raised from yuan bond issuance must not be wired back to Taiwan under any fashion.
Steel-dumping probe terminated
The Ministry of Finance yesterday announced it would terminate its investigation of an anti-dumping complaint filed by China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) over cheap steel imports from South Korea, Japan, China and India.
The announcement indicated the government would not levy anti-dumping duties on these imports.
The ministry’s decision follows the conclusion of the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Commission (ITC) in May that hot rolled steel plates imports from South Korea and India did not cause substantial damage to the domestic market.
As for the other two kinds of steel imports — carbon steel cold rolled flat products and low grade non grain-oriented electrical steel — originally filed by the CSC, the company withdrew the filings on its own in April, the finance ministry said.
DBS unveils finance app
DBS Bank Taiwan yesterday unveiled a mobile app in yet another bid to strengthen its consumer banking business.
The lender’s mobile app provides the latest financial news, foreign exchange updates, investment information, interest rates, fund performance inquiry and other services, DBS Taiwan said in a media briefing.
NT dollar rises slightly
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.019 to close at NT$29.886. Turnover totaled US$576 million during the trading session.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts