TAIEX rallies after low start
The TAIEX opened lower yesterday on concerns of foreign exchange losses in the electronics sector, but rebounded later to finish in positive territory.
The benchmark index hit the day’s low of 7,731.32 less than 15 minutes into the session before rallying to close up 4.82 points, or 0.06 percent, at the day’s high of 7,823.97. Turnover was NT$73.8 billion (US$2.54 billion). In all, 1,924 stocks closed up, 2,874 closed down and 442 remained unchanged.
Among the market’s eight major categories, cement shares fell 0.4 percent, plastics and chemical stocks fell 0.5 percent, food stocks lost 0.1 percent and textile shares fell 0.3 percent.
Machinery and electronics shares gained 0.2 percent, construction shares closed up 1 percent and financial stocks rose 0.4 percent. Paper and pulp shares remained unchanged.
Garment trade surplus down
Taiwan posted a garment trade surplus of US$8.5 billion last year, down 7.1 percent from the US$9.15 billion posted a year earlier, the Taiwan Textile Federation said yesterday.
Garment exports fell 7 percent last year to US$11.82 billion from US$12.72 billion in 2011, the federation said, citing statistics from the Ministry of Finance. Imports totaled US$3.32 billion last year, also down 7 percent from US$3.57 billion the year before, the federation said.
FAT to launch new China routes
Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT, 遠東航空) will operate charter services to the northern China autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia during the Lunar New Year holiday next month, the company said yesterday.
Three flights are scheduled to depart on Feb. 9, Feb. 16 and Feb. 23 from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot.
Three flights bound for Ningxia’s capital, Yinchuan, are to depart on Feb. 7, Feb. 14 and Feb. 21, the airline said.
Hohhot and Yinchuan are among eight new destinations which will include: Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province, Xining and Hailar in Qinghai Province, Lijiang in Yunnan Province, Weihai in Shandong Province and Urumchi in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
IT spending set to increase
Information technology (IT) spending worldwide is expected to increase 4.2 percent to US$3.7 trillion this year from last year, researcher Gartner Inc said.
In the Asia-Pacific region, IT spending is forecast to rise by an annual 7.1 percent to US$733 billion, driven by increasing demand in the software market, Gartner said.
However, spending on PCs may be dragged down by price competition in the market for tablets and smaller devices, Gartner added.
Electronics price top searches
A ranking of product searches showed that computer, communication and consumer electronics are the items whose prices consumers most frequently search for, information compiled by EZprice (比價網) showed.
EZprice, an online company offering shopping and price comparison guidance, used keywords to find which brands are most frequently searched for. The top five most searched for brands were: Sony Corp, Samsung Electronics Co, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), Apple Inc and Panasonic Corp.
NT dollar loses to greenback
The New Taiwan dollar closed lower against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.019 to close at NT$29.058.
Turnover totaled about US$700 million during the trading session.
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ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to