Futures trading impacts TAIEX
The TAIEX closed lower yesterday, below the 7,800-point mark, as investors cut their holdings in the spot market in a bid to profit in the futures market, where they raised short-positions, dealers said.
Selling focused on large-cap electronics stocks, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), while the financial sector remained resilient on hopes that Taiwan and China would increase cross-strait financial exchanges, they said.
The weighted index closed down 40.44 points, or 0.52 percent, at 7,798.03 on turnover of NT$73.68 billion (US$2.47 billion).
TSMC shares closed down 1.20 percent at NT$98.80, while Hon Hai lost 1.32 percent to close at NT$82.10.
Raise electricity prices: ECCT
Taiwan should consider increasing electricity prices as part of energy-saving efforts, the European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT) said yesterday.
“We support the idea of raising electricity prices because it would make people more aware of saving energy,” ECCT chief executive Freddie Hoeglund said at a luncheon with journalists.
He suggested that local companies replace outdated plants and equipment or adopt new manufacturing technologies, which he said could help improve energy efficiency.
HTC loses German court battle
HTC Corp (宏達電) lost a German lawsuit after a court said it violated Nokia Oyj patents for technology that helps save battery life on mobile phones.
The Mannheim court on Tuesday ruled that HTC infringed the German part of Nokia’s European patent. Taoyuan-based HTC said that the patent is invalid and it would appeal the decision.
“This decision cannot be described as a ‘win’ for Nokia because it only applies to handsets that are no longer imported into Germany, and newer HTC handsets do not use the accused technology,” HTC said. “As Nokia clearly went to great lengths to assert its strongest patents first, we are confident that its non-essential patent portfolio poses little threat to HTC.”
Ministry mulling AIDC sale
The Ministry of Economic Affairs is considering privatizing aircraft maker Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC, 漢翔航空) as part of a government drive to offload large state-owned assets.
Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) told the legislature on Monday that he would agree to a plan submitted by the firm to sell at least half the government’s 100 percent stake.
While no timeline has been set, Wu Fong-sheng (吳豐盛), a ministry official in charge of the sale, said he expects the company to be listed on the stock exchange next year.
AIDC reported NT$1.25 billion (US$42.1 million) in net profits last year, up from NT$1.12 billion the previous year.
Wistron unveils new products
Software developer Wistron Information Technology & Services Corp (WITSC, 緯創軟體) on Tuesday unveiled two new cloud-computing services developed by Japanese software makers TIS Inc and Qualica Inc.
The two products are “Easy e-Test,” an online school assignment and exam platform, and “TastyQube,” an inventory management system designed for chain stores.
Wistron Information is a subsidiary of Wistron Corp (緯創), the world’s third-biggest contract notebook maker.
New Taiwan dollar weakens
The New Taiwan dollar fell against its US counterpart yesterday, declining NT$0.044 to close at NT$29.845.
Turnover totaled US$911 million during the trading session.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
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