UNITED STATES
US output, home sales weak
Manufacturing output barely rose last month and contracts to buy previously owned homes recorded their largest drop in nearly three-and-a-half years, the latest signs the economy’s momentum ebbed as the third quarter ended. Manufacturing production edged up 0.1 percent last month after advancing 0.5 percent in August, the Federal Reserve said on Monday. Separately, the National Association of Realtors said its pending home sales index, based on contracts signed last month, plunged 5.6 percent to the lowest level since December last year.
SOUTH KOREA
Current account surplus up
The current account surplus expanded last month from the previous month on trade gains and stronger service industry earnings, the Bank of Korea said yesterday. The current account, the broadest measure of the country’s trade with the rest of the world, showed a surplus of US$6.57 billion last month, up from a revised US$5.68 billion in August. Earlier this month, the central bank said the nation’s current account surplus was likely to hit a record-high of US$63 billion for the full year.
TECHNOLOGY
Infosys faces visa fines
The US government plans to punish Indian outsourcing giant Infosys Ltd with the largest immigration fine ever for seeking visas fraudulently for workers at big clients in the US, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Infosys is accused of putting workers on visitor visas rather than work visas. The former are much easier and cheaper to obtain than the latter. The fine is expected to be about US$35 million, the paper said, quoting people close to the matter.
BANKING
UBS posts profit in Q3
Swiss banking giant UBS AG reported a third-quarter net profit of 577 million Swiss francs (US$644 million), compared with losses of SF2.1 billion in the same period last year. However, Switzerland’s largest bank says it may not be able to reach its profit goals for 2015 because of Swiss regulatory demands that it hold more capital for risks from litigation. UBS said in a statement yesterday it had third-quarter charges of SF586 million for litigation, regulatory and other related matters, and sees more regulatory challenges ahead.
BANKING
Lawsuits hurt Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank yesterday said that its third-quarter bottom line was hit by “substantial litigation charges” and falling profits in investment banking. Germany’s biggest lender said in a statement that its net profit tumbled 94 percent to 41 million euros (US$56.5 million) in the period from July to September, way below analysts’ expectations. Group net revenues were down 10 percent at 7.74 billion euros. The group put the litigation charges in the third quarter at 1.2 billion euros.
PETROLEUM
BP profit plunges 34%
British energy giant BP yesterday said that its net profit slid 34 percent to US$3.5 billion in the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago. The group’s replacement cost profit — which excludes changes in the value of oil inventories — dropped to US$3.18 billion. Production fell 2.3 percent, while BP was also hit by lower refining margins. The company said that charges as a result of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster in 2010 currently stood at US$42.5 billion.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”