UNITED STATES
Trade deficit widens
The trade deficit unexpectedly widened in September as exports hit a five-month low, a sign that slowing global demand could undercut economic growth in the fourth quarter. The Commerce Department said on Tuesday that the trade gap increased 7.6 percent to US$43.03 billion, ending four straight months in which the deficit had narrowed. September’s shortfall was bigger than the US$38.1 billion gap the government had assumed in is estimate of third-quarter GDP last week, when it said the economy expanded at a 3.5 percent annual rate, with trade adding 1.3 percentage points.
CHINA
Bank markets new bonds
Bank of China Ltd (中國銀行) is marketing a bond that complies with new global banking regulations known as Basel III to US investors in a first for a Chinese lender. The nation’s fourth-largest bank is offering 10-year subordinated 144A notes to yield 300 basis points over similar-maturity treasuries, according to people familiar with the matter. It aims to sell about US$3 billion of the securities, the people said.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook reports requests
Facebook Inc said requests by governments for user information rose by about a quarter in the first half of this year over the second half of last year. In the first six months, governments around the world made 34,946 requests for data. During the same time, the amount of content restricted because of local laws increased about 19 percent. “We’re aggressively pursuing an appeal to a higher court to invalidate these sweeping warrants and to force the government to return the data it has seized,” the company said on Tuesday.
FRANCE
Alstom sales approved
Minister of the Economy Emmanuel Macron yesterday authorized the sale of most of Alstom’s energy assets to US group General Electric, clearing the way for a deal worth almost US$17 billion. General Electric in June won a fierce two-month battle to buy most of Alstom’s energy assets, which represent about 70 percent of the conglomerate’s revenues, for US$16.9 billion. A shareholders’ general meeting will be held on Dec. 19 on the deal, Alstom said.
E-COMMERCE
Alibaba profit rises 15%
Chinese online commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) met Wall Street expectations on Tuesday in its first quarterly report after completing the world’s biggest stock offering, propelling its stock to record territory. Alibaba said its adjusted third-quarter net profit rose by 15 percent to US$1.1 billion. However, using standard accounting practices that include depreciation and one-time costs, profits fell 39 percent to US$494 million. Revenue jumped 53.7 percent from the same quarter last year to US$2.7 billion.
CLOTHING
Retailer raises forecast
Marks & Spencer Group PLC raised its forecast for full-year profitability, cushioning the blow of the steepest quarterly decline in non-food sales since Marc Bolland took the helm more than four years ago. Gross margin in the general-merchandise division will widen by 1.5 to 2 percentage points, the UK’s biggest clothing retailer said yesterday. It had previously predicted an increase of 1 percentage point.
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