TAIEX up on ‘cheap’ tech stocks
The TAIEX staged a technical rebound yesterday as bargain hunters turned active to pick up high-tech stocks by taking advantage of low valuations after a recent slump, dealers said.
However, the gains were capped ahead of the 7,300-point mark as market sentiment remained haunted by lingering concerns over the weakness of the global economy, they said.
The weighted index closed up 50.59 points, or 0.70 percent, at 7,293.22, after moving between 7,170.29 and 7,302.27 points on turnover of NT$83.64 billion (US$2.88 billion).
At the end of the session, the paper and pulp sector showed the highest gains among the eight major sectors of the market, finishing up 1.48 percent.
Sharp, Hon Hai still negotiating
Sharp Corp’s talks with Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group (富士康) over a capital tie-up could continue beyond March if a deal is not reached by then, a senior executive at the Japanese electronics maker said.
While the two companies had previously agreed on a March 26 deadline, negotiations could be extended “depending on the situation,” the executive said at a press briefing yesterday. The company has not been able to reach a new deal with Foxconn, founded by billionaire Terry Gou (郭台銘), which initially agreed in March to buy a 9.9 percent stake in Osaka-based Sharp for ¥550 a share, or ¥67 billion (US$842.9 million), after its share price plunged amid widening net-loss estimates.
Sharp rose 2 percent to ¥155 in Tokyo trading yesterday, narrowing this year’s decline to 77 percent, the worst performer among more than 1,600 companies in the MSCI World Index of developed nations.
Taiwan’s fuel bill up 19.5%
Taiwan purchased more of its fuel from abroad last month as Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) increased processing. Shipments rose 13.2 percent from a year earlier to 27.6 million barrels, or about 890,000 barrels a day last month, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday. The nation’s monthly oil bill increased 19.5 percent to US$3.13 billion, the ministry said in a statement.
Formosa Petrochemical’s revenue last month climbed 19 percent from a year earlier as the firm increased its output of fuels and petrochemicals, the company said in a statement on Monday. Crude refined output in the month was 30,000 barrels a day higher than a year earlier, according to the statement.
IT firms must diversify: expert
Taiwanese application developers and companies that want to leverage Microsoft Corp’s and Google Inc’s operating systems should find other platforms, a Canadian expert said yesterday.
Both Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8 and Google Inc’s Android systems are going to be “more closed,” said Jason Flick, president of Youi Labs, a user-interface design company based in Ottawa.
Speaking on the sidelines of a Taiwan-Canada forum in Taipei on user interfaces and experience development, Flick described the fact that Android certification is getting “increasingly rigorous and difficult” to get as “an interesting twist.”
The forum, organized by the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei, offers a platform for participants to discuss future directions and how businesses can benefit from global trends.
NT dollar up as bank intervenes
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar yesterday, rising NT$0.052 to close at NT$29.150 after reversing most of its earlier losses on the back of intervention from the central bank, dealers said.
Turnover totaled US$794 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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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