TAIEX edged by low turnover
The TAIEX edged down 0.12 percent yesterday on relatively low trading volume, with the market still in a correction mode, dealers said.
The weighted index ranged between a high of 7,523.54 and 7,457.75 before finishing down 9.31 points at 7,468.22 on turnover of NT$65.34 billion (US$2.18 billion).
A total of 1,495 stocks closed up, 2,503 finished down, and 438 remained unchanged.
The majority of the eight major stock categories on Taiwan’s market lost ground, with food shares suffering the steepest fall, shedding 1.5 percent.
TPK approves purchase plan
TPK Holding Co Ltd (宸鴻), Apple Inc’s touch module supplier, said yesterday its board had approved a plan to issue as much as US$250 million in five-year unsecured convertible bonds at a zero coupon rate to help fund raw materials purchases, according to a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Other details, including pricing and issue date, will be set later, the company said.
Hon Hai bond yield dropping
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, said yesterday it raised NT$3.3 billion via a bond sale, Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing two underwriters.
Hon Hai sold the five-year bonds at a yield of 1.35 percent, compared with a 1.43 percent yield in the NT$6 billion five-year bonds it sold in April and a 1.34 percent yield of the NT$9 billion five-year bonds issued in February, the report said.
Formosa Plastics to sell bonds
Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), the nation’s largest maker of polyvinyl chloride, said its board had approved a plan to sell up to NT$9 billion in unsecured corporate bonds, as the company plans to use the proceeds to expand capacity, repay loans and fund future investments and operations.
The maturity of the bonds would be less than 10 years and could be sold at various times, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
New CSBC boss appointed
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has named Chen Feng-lin (陳豊霖), vice president of CSBC Corp, Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船), to serve as the state-run company’s president.
The Greater Kaohsiung-based company said in a statement that Chen would replace Huang Shun-chang (黃順章), who is retiring.
Car industry output dropping
The third quarter production value of Taiwan’s car manufacturing sector is likely to fall partly because of the weak economy, according to a government report.
The report, released by the Industry and Technology Intelligence Services (ITIS) on Friday, forecast output of the local car industry to drop by about 12 percent from the second quarter to NT$43.2 billion.
For this year, car industry output is expected to reach NT$186.35 billion, down 0.5 percent from last year, ITIS said.
TAITRA to tout machinery
A trade delegation comprised of leading companies in the local precision machinery industry will visit China next month to promote business opportunities, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said.
The trade delegation, which will visit Wuhan and Chengdu from Sept. 10 to Sept. 13, is expected to generate US$10 million in business, TAITRA said.
NT dollars gains on greenback
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.022 to close at NT$29.980. Turnover totaled US$504 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
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