Corporate earnings limit TAIEX
The TAIEX fell for the third straight trading day yesterday, amid rising concerns over corporate earnings after PC vendor Acer Inc (宏碁) reported disappointing third-quarter results, dealers said.
Worries over sluggish global demand also drove many investors to the sidelines and kept daily turnover low, causing the broader market to move in a narrow range during the trading session, they said.
Acer shares fell 3.53 percent to close at NT$26 after the company reported a worse-than-expected earnings per share of NT$0.03 for the third quarter, while its operating margin fell to 0.3 percent from 0.4 percent in the second quarter.
The weighted index closed down 35.56 points, or 0.48 percent, at 7,337.48, on turnover of NT$45.87 billion (US$1.57 billion).
“Acer’s earnings did dampen investor sentiment,” Hua Nan Securities (華南永昌證券) analyst Henry Miao (苗台生) said. “With the earnings reporting season just kicking off, many investors were afraid that more negative earnings news would come out.”
USITC rules against ITRI
The US International Trade Commission (USITC) has ruled that South Korea-based LG Electronics Inc did not infringe an LCD patent owned by a Taiwanese research institute, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday.
The state-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) had accused LG of violating a patent covering “backlight modules that improve uniformity of light so they have correct brightness,” the report said.
In response, ITRI said the notice was only an initial finding and the case is still being tried, vowing to safeguard its patent rights.
CatchPlay wins injunction
Taiwanese film distributor CatchPlay Inc (威望國際) said on Monday that it has been granted a preliminary injunction in a licensing dispute against film buyer Studio Solutions Group Inc (SSG), allowing it to continue offering movies in Taiwan.
On Oct. 11 a California federal court ordered that SSG, a California company acting as CatchPlay’s agent, could not terminate any of Catchplay’s rights to distribute its roughly 950 works in Taiwan, CatchPlay executive director Daphne Yang (楊麗貞) said at a press conference in Taipei.
FSC lowers insurance rates
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday lowered assumed interest rates by up to 1 percent on first-year life insurance premiums to reflect the tougher business environment.
The downward adjustments, set to take effect on Jan. 1, mean life insurers will have to set aside more life insurance reserves and thus raise insurance policy costs to maintain financial health and profitability, the commission said.
It cut assumed rates on US dollar-based insurance policies by 75 to 100 basis points, euro-denominated policies by 50 to 75 basis points and Australian currency-linked policies by 25 to 75 basis points.
Ting Hsin hires Steven Lee
McDonalds’ executive Steven Lee (李明元), has been hired away by the Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) a Taiwanese-owned food conglomerate with a huge presence in China.
Ting Hsin, which will make Lee vice president of its chain restaurant group, is hoping he can improve the competitiveness of its chain franchises and help them tap into China’s food and beverage market more quickly, the company said on Monday.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.008 to close at NT$29.328.
Turnover totaled about US$545 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