TAIEX rises 0.3 percent
The TAIEX closed moderately higher yesterday on rotational buying, but stiff technical resistance ahead of 7,500 points kept a cap on gains by the end of the session, dealers said.
Thin turnover showed that investors were cautious about the global economy and corporate second-quarter results, while the latest adjustments in MSCI indices failed to give strong hints to investors to trade, the dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 22.47 points, or 0.30 percent, at 7,490.21 after moving between 7,456.40 and 7,515.02 on turnover of NT$78.05 billion (US$2.6 billion).
Delta to buy Luxeon trademarks
Delta Electronics Inc (台達電), the nation’s biggest supplier of power supply units, said yesterday it planned to buy several trademarks from Luxeon International Holding Ltd for US$14.23 million in an effort to expand its brand business.
Delta planned to buy QUMI, VIVITEK and other trademarks under review, Delta said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
QUMI is a projector brand operated by a local company Vivitek Corp (麗訊).
Cheng Loong mulls China buy
Cheng Loong Corp (正隆), one of Taiwan’s leading paper manufacturers, said yesterday it was in talks with one of its counterparts in China on a possible acquisition.
The paper producer said it was hoping to buy the Chinese company, which has an annual production capacity of 1 million tonnes and great potential for expansion because it is situated on a huge tract of land.
Cheng Loong declined to disclose any further information about the plan.
The company currently operates production bases in several Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Suzhou, Kunshan, Zhengzhou, Dongguan and Tianjin, as well as in countries like Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia and the US.
In the first seven months of this year, Cheng Loong posted NT$14.68 billion in sales, up 7.62 percent from a year earlier.
Formosa shuts naphtha cracker
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said it halted the No. 2 naphtha cracker in Mailiao (麥寮) Township, Yunlin County, for 30 days for maintenance, starting on Wednesday.
A hydrocracker and vacuum distillation unit at Mailiao were shut as of July 27, company spokesman Lin Keh-yen (林克彥) said by telephone yesterday.
Tablets overtaking notebooks
Between 60,000 and 70,000 tablets were sold in May and June in Taiwan, which exceeded the number of notebook PCs sold in the same period, Andy Tu (杜偉昱), general manager of Samsung Electronics Taiwan Co’s mobile communications team, said yesterday at a product launch ceremony in Taipei.
In comparison, only between 20,000 and 30,000 tablets were sold in Taiwan during the same period of last year, which Tu said was an indication that Taiwanese consumers’ purchase behavior is changing.
Tu said more people would like to buy tablets before they consider replacing their notebook PCs, while Taiwan is a little faster than the world’s average when it comes to adopting tablets over notebooks PCs, he added.
Tu said there would be more Samsung products, including tablets, hitting the market later this year that will run on Windows RT, tailored for ARM Holdings PLC technology.
NT dollar falls against US dollar
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.018 to close at NT$30.020.
Turnover totaled about US$700 million during the trading session.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to