TAIEX gains on stimulus bets
The TAIEX overcame stiff technical resistance at around 7,200 points yesterday as the market again anticipated that the world’s major central banks will come up with stimulus measures to boost the fragile global economy, dealers said.
The hope for stimulus moves, in particular the injection of more funds into the market, prompted many investors to buy shares and ignore the government’s lowering of its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 2.08 percent, from an early estimate of 3.03 percent, they said.
Buying initially focused on large-cap and electronics stocks due to their relatively low valuation initially and spread to the old economy sector to push higher the index above the 7,200 point mark at the end of the session, they said.
The weighted index closed up 111.61 points, or 1.56 percent, at the day’s high of 7,270.49, off an early low of 7,140.53, on turnover of NT$80.17 billion (US$2.67 billion).
At the end of the session, the plastics and chemical sector scored the highest gains among the eight major sectors of the market, finishing up 1.8 percent.
E United eyes Indonesia
E United Group (義聯集團) plans to mine nickel and build a steel plant in Indonesia in a project that may cost up to NT$10 billion, the company and reports said yesterday.
E United, a leading steel conglomerate headquartered in Greater Kaohsiung, has signed a letter of intent with an Indonesian company to jointly mine nickel, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News said.
The newspaper did not identify the Indonesian company. Nickel is a key material used in the production of stainless steel.
“Indeed we do have such a project,” an official with the conglomerate said, without providing details of the joint investment plans.
The report said the plans would help E United ensure sufficient supplies of raw materials for plants it has built in China.
Panasonic back in black
Panasonic Corp said yesterday it returned to the black in the April-June quarter, logging a net profit of ¥12.8 billion (US$163 million) mainly on cost-cutting.
The Japanese consumer electronics giant had a net loss of ¥30.4 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.
The Osaka-based maker of Viera TVs and Lumix digital cameras said it managed to earn money despite a 6 percent decline in fiscal first quarter sales to ¥1.815 trillion amid weak demand in its Japanese home market.
Panasonic kept its profit forecast for the full fiscal year through March next year unchanged at ¥50 billion.
Audi sticking to target
Audi, the top-of-the-range carmaker owned by German auto giant Volkswagen, said operating profit accelerated powerfully in the first half of the year and stuck to its full-year target.
Operating profit rose by 13.2 percent to 2.9 billion euros (US$3.6 billion) from a year earlier, the firm said, registering sales of 25 billion euros, a gain of 16.2 percent.
Audi said it delivered 733,237 cars in the first half of the year, 12.3 percent more than in the first six months of last year.
The company said it aimed to deliver more than 1.4 million cars for the first time in the full year.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar yesterday, edging up NT$0.07 to close at NT$30.010 as traders moved their funds out of the US dollar to the currencies in the region, including the NT dollar, throughout the trading session, dealers said. Turnover totaled US$779 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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day