High-tech stocks boost TAIEX
The TAIEX was lifted by rotational buying yesterday as select high-tech stocks staged a rebound because of an improvement in profitability, dealers said.
However, the gains were limited as the index encountered stiff technical resistance at around 7,300 points, with investors still wary of sluggish global economic fundamentals, they said.
The weighted index closed up 24.34 points, or 0.33 percent, at 7,319.80, on turnover of NT$93.59 billion (US$3.12 billion).
The turnover was the highest since June 15 and exceeded NT$90 billion for only the third time since June 1.
Hon Hai raises NT$8bn
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, raised NT$8 billion via a bond sale, the underwriter of the deal said in a statement yesterday.
The company sold the three-year bonds at a yield of 1.18 percent, its lowest yield for a three-year bond since 2008, when it sold NT$5.12 billion of such debt at a yield of 2.50 percent.
In April, Hon Hai sold NT$6 billion of five-year bonds at a yield of 1.43 percent and in February it issued NT$9 billion of five-year bonds at 1.34 percent.
Cathay Financial sells bonds
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the nation’s largest financial services provider, yesterday said it raised US$254 million from the sale of two-year convertible bonds.
The company said in a statement that the bonds give investors the right to convert the paper into Cathay Financial shares at NT$38.10 each by August 2014.
Higher yuan ceiling urged
Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) chairman Paul Chiu (邱正雄) yesterday called on the government to raise the ceiling for local banks’ exposure to the Chinese yuan to benefit from growing economic exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.
Local rules currently impose a cap on each Taiwanese bank’s aggregate amount of yuan-denominated loans and investments, at 100 percent of the bank’s net worth.
Chiu said the restrictions have made Taiwan lag behind Hong Kong in financial competition and the government should therefore relax the rules.
The restrictions are particularly unfavorable to smaller sized banks, Chiu said. In addition, the local banking sector is unlikely to benefit greatly from a relatively wide interest spread in the yuan lending business because of the current exposure ceiling, he said.
Nanya Technology holds rank
Taiwan-based Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) retained its ranking as the world’s fifth-largest DRAM chip maker in terms of sales during the second quarter of this year, DRAMexchange, a research division of the Taiwan-based market information advisory TrendForce (集邦科技), said in a report on Tuesday.
Nanya, which posted US$341 million in sales for the April to June period, took a 4.9 percent share of the global DRAM market in the quarter, compared with the 4.6 percent it secured in the first quarter, DRAMexchange said.
Samsung Electronics Co remained the world’s largest DRAM maker in the second quarter, gaining a 39.5 percent share, while SK Hynix Inc took a 24.4 percent share, ranking as the world’s second-largest memorychip maker. Elpida Memory Inc came in third with a 12.9 percent market share, followed by Micron Technology Inc with 12.5 percent, the report said.
NT dollar slips
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.032 to close at NT$29.987.
Turnover totaled about US$708 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],”
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
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