TAIEX follows Wall Street rise
The TAIEX moved higher yesterday after Wall Street reached a new record high overnight, but gains were limited as the index moved closer to the 8,000-point mark, dealers said.
Buying rotated to the financial sector as investors embraced high hopes that the sector will benefit from increasing financial exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, while a sluggish electronics sector kept the broader market from rising further, the dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 10.21 points, or 0.13 percent, at 7,960.51, after moving between 7,942.37 and 7,984.29, on turnover of NT$82.03 billion (US$2.77 billion).
E Ink revenues plummet
E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), which supplies e-paper displays to Amazon.com Inc and Sony Corp for their e-readers, yesterday said its revenue plunged 44 percent to NT$1.43 billion last month from January’s NT$2.57 billion, due to fewer working days in the month and slack demand during the low season.
The figure represented a 33 percent annual growth, E Ink said in a statement.
Last month, the company said revenue would fall this quarter from last quarter’s NT$10.8 billion because of seasonal factors.
The company also said it had signed an agreement with GDS Holding to jointly develop e-paper displays for outdoor billboards.
CPC joins Shell-run oil project
State-run refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said it had obtained 5 percent of rights and interests in a gas field development project run by oil exploration firm Shell Development (Australia) Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell PLC.
Shell Development is exploring for oil in the Prelude and Concerto gas fields off the western Australian coast.
CPC said its participation in the development project would increase its own oil resources and enhance fuel supply.
Shell Development currently owns 67.5 percent of interests and rights in the project, with Japan’s INPEX Corp holding 17.5 percent and South Korea’s Korea Gas Corp owning 10 percent, CPC said.
FTC approves ASML bid
Netherland-based ASML Holding NV, the world’s largest lithography system provider for the semiconductor industry, received conditional approval from the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) to acquire Cymer Inc, a light-source developer and one of ASML’s suppliers, through Kona Technologies LLC, an ASML subsidiary.
The FTC said yesterday that the acquisition could facilitate the development of extreme ultraviolet lithography technology, and in turn promote the semiconductor industry, but certain conditions should be set to secure market competition.
The commission said after the acquisition, Kona Technologies cannot refuse to supply materials to Canon Inc and Nikon Corp, ASML’s competitors. Furthermore, Kona Technologies should not limit semiconductor companies from conducting business with Kona Technologies’ competitors, Canon and Nikon.
National debt rises again
National debt was NT$232,000 per person as of the end of last month, up NT$1,000 from January, due to Lunar New Year holiday spending, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
The figure has risen for the fourth consecutive month on a monthly basis.
National debt, including long-term and short-term debt, amounted to NT$5.415 trillion as of the end of last month, up NT$35 billion from a month earlier, the ministry’s data showed.
Government bonds — the central government’s outstanding debt with a maturity of more than a year — totaled NT$5.13 trillion, while Treasury bills — outstanding debt with a maturity of less than a year — stood at NT$285 billion, statistics showed.
NT dollar down on grenback
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.025 to close at NT$29.695, ending a two-session winning streak. Turnover totaled only US$350 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],”
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
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