Investors wait on Apple results
The TAIEX retreated yesterday in thin trading as many investors took to the sidelines as they waited for Apple Inc’s quarterly results to be released later that day, dealers said.
Old economy stocks also failed to stage a technical rebound from their recent slump, keeping the broader market in negative territory, they said.
The weighted index closed down 14.92 points, or 0.19 percent, at 7,744.18, on turnover of NT$62.68 billion (US$2.16 billion).
Steel stocks receive boost
Local steel stocks got a boost yesterday after China’s Baoshan Iron & Steel Co (寶鋼) raised product prices for the second time in a month, paving the way for Taiwanese steel makers to follow suit, strengthening their bottom lines, dealers said.
On Tuesday, Baoshan announced it would increase prices for contracts in March by between 100 yuan (US$16.08) and 220 yuan per tonne, or 3.92 percent on average.
Among the companies whose stock posted gains was China Steel Corp (中鋼), its shares climbing 0.74 percent to close at NT$27.20 (US$0.94), Yieh Hsing Enterprises Co (燁興), which gained 7 percent to NT$7.60 and Chien Shing Stainless Steel Co (千興) which also finished up 7 percent at NT$4.74.
Job market reform needed: Yiin
Taiwan’s unemployment is mainly the result of a structural problem where factories cannot recruit enough basic-level workers and university graduates are unable to find jobs fitting their education, Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) said on Tuesday.
Yiin made the remarks after the latest government data showed that the unemployment rate had dropped to 4.18 percent last month and finished at 4.24 percent for the whole of last year.
Fixing this structural problem requires reform of the relevant systems, including strengthening links between vocational education and industry, so that students find jobs when they graduate, he added.
Wi-Fi group to open new branch
The Wi-Fi Alliance, a global non-profit industry association, will open a branch office in Taipei today to provide market and technical support to alliance member companies.
Wi-Fi Alliance president and CEO, Edgar Figueroa, is to present the alliance’s plans for cooperation with its local partners and the development of Wi-Fi technology, an invitation e-mailed to the media said.
Taiwanese companies in the alliance include computer makers Acer Inc (宏碁) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), contract laptop maker Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), networking equipment maker ZyXEL Communications Corp (合勤科技) and chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科).
Bond auction successful
The yield of the government’s 20-year Treasury bonds reached 1.605 percent in an auction yesterday, higher than the 1.58 percent recorded in the previous sale of 20-year bonds in November last year, which had been the lowest on record, the central bank said in a statement.
Yesterday’s sale attracted bids for 1.42 times more than the NT$40 billion bonds on offer, less than the 1.73 times recorded last year, the statement said.
The banking sector was the biggest buyer of the bonds, purchasing 44.75 percent of the issuance.
NT dollar edges higher
The New Taiwan dollar closed higher against the US dollar yesterday, rising NT$0.003 to NT$29.092.
Turnover totaled US$662 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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts