TAIEX edges up
The TAIEX closed slightly higher yesterday after a quiet trading session on thin turnover, with many investors remaining on the sidelines amid lingering concerns over the global economy, dealers said.
Some notebook computer makers faced downward pressure after Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc, two of the leading personal computer vendors, gave cautious assessments of market demand, dealers said. Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) ended down 1.43 percent at NT$76 and Pegatron Corp (和碩) closed 5.24 percent lower at NT$39.75 in reflection of worries about global demand after HP’s and Dell’s cautious market outlook.
The weighted index closed up 8.59 points, or 0.11 percent, at 7,505.17, after moving between 7,475.09 and 7,519.08. Turnover during the session was NT$68.19 billion (US$2.28 billion).
The construction sector scored the highest gains among the eight major sectors of the market, finishing up 1.9 percent as investors were betting that the government would relax its efforts to curb market speculation.
Terry Gou to visit Japan
Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) will visit Japan on Monday for industry exchanges, the company said yesterday.
The company said its partnership with Japan-based Sharp Corp remains unchanged, but would not disclose if a joint statement on Hon Hai’s plan to take a stake in the Japanese firm would be released during Gou’s visit. Hon Hai has previously said a statement would be released by the end of this month.
In March, Hon Hai agreed to buy a 9.871 percent stake in loss-incurring Sharp for about US$800 million, or ¥550 per share.
FIH Regent’s earnings drop
FIH Regent Group (晶華國際酒店集團), the nation’s largest listed hotel operator, said on Wednesday its earnings fell 11.73 percent in the first half from a year earlier.
Net income was NT$559.81 million in the first six months of the year, or earnings per share of NT$6.37, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
That was compared with a net income of NT$634.18 billion, or NT$7.22 per share, the company reported for the same period of last year.
Operating income grew 10.42 percent to NT$631.08 million in the first half from NT$571.52 million of the same period last year, while revenue increased 4.34 percent to NT$1.83 billion from NT$1.75 billion a year earlier.
FIH Regent runs the international luxury hotel Regent Taipei (晶華), the lifestyle hotel Silks (晶英) and the business hotel chain Just Sleep (捷絲旅).
Yuanta Futures ranked largest
Yuanta Futures Co (元大期貨) ranked the largest trader among local futures firms last month in terms of trading European futures products, the company said yesterday.
Citing statistics compiled by the Chinese National Futures Association, Yuanta Futures said its trading volume in four major futures exchanges in Europe reached 11,051 contracts last month, accounting for 51.63 percent of the total contracts traded by local futures traders.
KGI Futures Co (凱基期貨) came in second with a trading volume of 3,801, which made up 17.76 percent of the total, ahead of Capital Futures Corp (群益期貨) with 2,648 contracts, which accounted for 12.37 percent of the total, according to the statistics.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, gaining NT$0.05 to close at NT$29.960. Turnover totaled about US$501 million during the trading session, down from US$521 million the previous session.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the