Tech rebound boosts TAIEX
The TAIEX recovered earlier losses to end in positive territory yesterday as the electronics sector staged a rebound to push the broader market out of a slump, dealers said.
The market opened down 0.53 percent and moved to the day’s low in early morning trade as market sentiment remained cautious about the global economy, they said.
However, after the index moved closer to the 7,000 point mark, bargain hunters took advantage of low valuations on certain electronics heavyweights to send the index higher, they said.
The weighted index closed up 13.59 points, or 0.19 percent, at 7,179.64, on turnover of NT$72.78 billion (US$2.49 billion).
More workers on unpaid leave
The number of workers on unpaid leave has increased by 815 in the past two weeks, according to government statistics released yesterday.
The two-week increase from 2,040 to 2,855 is the biggest so far this year, according to the statistics which were released by the Council of Labor Affairs.
As of Wednesday, workers in 47 companies had reached agreements with their employers to take unpaid leave, the council said.
The statistics show that since August, the number of people on unpaid leave has continued to rise, showing that the situation of workers on furlough has worsened.
Bad loan ratio drops to 0.51%
Taiwan’s bad loan ratio dropped to 0.51 percent at the end of September, from 0.54 percent a month earlier, as the asset quality of domestic banks showed improvements, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
Non-performing loans totaled NT$114.1 billion as of Sept. 30, down NT$5.6 billion from the end of August, while outstanding loans dropped NT$24.3 billion to NT$22.15 trillion, the commission said.
All 38 lenders kept their bad loan ratio below the 2 percent alert level with the average coverage ratio at 212.69 percent, 10.89 percentage points higher than a month earlier, the commission said.
Projector shipments see growth
Taiwan’s third-quarter projector shipments totaled 23,125 units, a mild growth of 1.7 percent quarter-on-quarter due to Taipei City Government’s purchases for local schools, but the figure was down 13.4 percent year-on-year, market research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said in a report.
IDC analyst Leon Kao (高振偉) said shipments might decrease this quarter, as the market is entering an off-season period amid a grim economic climate.
IDC said the five top-selling vendors of projectors were Epson Taiwan Technology and Trading Ltd (台灣愛普生), Optoma Corp (奧圖碼), BenQ Corp (明基), Vivitek Corp and NEC Corp.
Together they accounted for 78 percent of the total projector shipments in the third quarter, the report said, with Epson leading the market with 28 percent.
Low demand hits China Steel
China Steel Corp (中鋼), Taiwan’s largest steelmaker, reported a 61 percent decline in third-quarter profits after cutting output and product prices on lower demand.
Net income fell to NT$1.86 billion in the three months ending on Sept. 30 from NT$4.72 billion a year earlier, according to figures derived from nine-month earnings released by the company on Tuesday.
Nine-month net income fell to NT$3.81 billion from NT$20.1 billion a year earlier, according to the statement.
NT dollar retreats
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.03 to close at NT$29.290.
Turnover totaled around US$660 million during the trading session.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is