TAIEX passes 7,800 points
The TAIEX closed above the 7,800 points yesterday on the back of further fund inflows with foreign investors more willing to take risks after the US escaped the “fiscal cliff,” dealers said.
Select large-cap stocks, in particular Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), remained spotlighted in buying and boosted daily turnover as foreign institutional investors rushed to build up their holdings, the dealers said.
TSMC closed 1.41 percent higher at NT$101.00, the first time the stock had breached the NT$100.00 mark in almost 12 years.
The benchmark TAIEX ended up 57.62 points, or 0.74 percent, at 7,836.84 on turnover of NT$104.91 billion (US$3.62 billion).
FTC to discuss Next Media deal
Fair Trade Commission Chairman Wu Shiow-ming (吳秀明) said yesterday at the Legislative Yuan that the commission is likely to hold a meeting by next week to discuss, whether Next Media Group (壹傳媒集團) buyers other than Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) chairman William Wong (王文淵) have to submit the buyout deal, whether further documents are needed and whether the Next TV buyout contract has to be filed for review of the Next Media buyout.
Wu said the commission would demand that related parties provide the required documents in two to four weeks. However, he said it is unlikely that the review would be completed by the end of this month and new commissioners will take over the review next month.
Taiwanese invest big in Fujian
Taiwanese companies made new investments worth a total of US$1.69 billion in China’s Fujian Province between January and November last year, up 28.8 percent from a year earlier, according to a Chinese media report.
So far, accumulated Taiwanese investment in Fujian has exceeded US$20 billion and there are 763 Taiwanese companies with capitalization of over US$10 million in the province, the Xinhua news agency said, citing statistics compiled by the province’s Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.
CPC forecasts revenue
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) is expected to generate revenues of up to NT$1.2 trillion this year, with a net profit of NT$17.58 billion, chairman Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠) forecast on Wednesday.
Of the NT$17.58 billion, net profit from natural gas will account for NT$5.4 billion, he said. The company will seek breakthroughs in its refinery business, operation expansion, sales of oil products, research and innovation, industrial safety, and major investment planning, Lin said.
He said he hopes CPC’s third naphtha cracker in Greater Kaohsiung, which is being upgraded, will be operational by June.
Bad loan ratio falls
The non-performing loan ratio dropped to 0.47 percent at the end of November, down from 0.49 percent one month earlier, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
That translates into a NT$4.6 billion decline in total bad loans, which stood at NT$104.2 billion for 38 domestic lenders at the end of November.
Meanwhile, outstanding loans amounted to NT$22.15 trillion, down NT$44.3 billion from a month earlier, the commission said.
All lenders reported a bad loan ratio of less than 2 percent, with the coverage ratio climbing to 232.46 percent, up 9.45 percentage points from a month earlier.
NT dollar sheds NT$0.001
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.001 to close at NT$29.091.
Turnover totaled about US$786 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