TAIEX closes up slightly
The TAIEX closed little changed after profit taking eroded most of its early gains ahead of stiff technical resistance at about the 7,500-point mark, dealers said.
The early gains encouraged many investors to pocket profits as concerns over the global economy continued to affect market sentiment throughout the trading session, they said.
The weighted index closed up 4.23 points, or 0.06 percent, at 7,422.59, after moving between 7,397.80 and 7,442.55 on turnover of NT$83.37 billion (US$2.80 billion).
In yesterday’s trading, the cement sector scored the highest gains among the eight major sectors of the market, finishing up 1 percent.
Housing sales take tumble
Housing sales in New Taipei City (新北市) fell last month for the first time in five months as sales in some districts decreased sharply, according to city government data released on Tuesday.
The number of housing units sold fell 6.7 percent last month from a month earlier to 6,582, data from the city government’s Land Administration Department showed. On a yearly basis, the number marked a 7.2 percent decrease.
The fall was partly caused by a sharp decline in sales in the Lujhou (蘆洲), Zhonghe (中和) and Shulin (樹林) districts, which fell by 28.1 percent, 19.8 percent and 21.4 percent respectively. However, the sharp declines were mitigated by moderate increases in sales in Linkou (林口), Sinjhuang (新莊), Sijhih (汐止) and Tamsui (淡水) districts.
New CSBC chair appointed
Lai Sun-quae (賴杉桂), former -director-general of the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, officially became CSBC Corp, Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船) chairman yesterday, replacing Paul Tang (譚泰平), the firm said in a statement.
The 66-year-old Tang, who had served as CSBC chairman since December 2010, reached the normal retirement age last year, but was retained by the ministry — the company’s largest shareholder — for one more year.
Under Tang’s leadership the company made a profit of NT$1.74 billion, or NT$2.41 per share, last year, up from NT$1.71 billion, or NT$2.35 per share, recorded in 2010, company statistics showed.
Hon Hai vice president resigns
Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) yesterday confirmed local media reports that the group vice president Terry Cheng (程天縱) had tendered his resignation, citing health problem.
The group said Cheng was also resigning from his posts as a board director and executive officer at Hong Kong-listed Foxconn International Holdings (FIH, 富士康控股), which is a handset manufacturing arm of Hon Hai Group.
Cheng is not scheduled to leave his current positions until July 31.
Beats acquires MOG assets
Beats Electronics, a unit of Taiwanese handset maker HTC Corp (宏達電), has acquired assets owned by digital music subscription service MOG Inc through subsidiary Daisy LLC, according to an HTC filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
HTC said the US$14 million deal was approved by Beats’ board of directors and the amount “was negotiated by both parties involved.”
HTC declined to comment on the filing or provide further details of the deal.
Taiwan dollar makes ground
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.02 to close at NT$29.866 as improving sentiment toward the global economy drove traders to move their funds out of the greenback, dealers said.
Turnover totaled US$474 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