REAL ESTATE
US home resales surge
US home resales surged to a five-and-a-half-year high last month as first-time buyers stepped into the market, the latest indication that housing and overall economic activity were gathering steam in the second quarter. The improving economic outlook likely keeps the US Federal Reserve on course to raise interest rates later this year. The US’ National Association of Realtors on Monday said that existing-home sales increased 5.1 percent to an annual rate of 5.35 million units, the highest level since November 2009.
BANKING
More Lloyds shares sold
The UK government sold about £639 million (US$1 billion) of shares in Lloyds Banking Group PLC, lowering the Treasury’s holding to less than 17 percent. The sale reduced the stake by another 1 percentage point since June 10, when the Treasury last disclosed it had sold shares, according to a statement from the lender yesterday. This compares with 24.9 percent at the start of the trading plan initiated by the Treasury in December last year, the lender said. Sales of shares in Lloyds have netted the Treasury about £11.5 billion.
INSURANCE
Cigna rejects Anthem bid
Cigna Corp rejected Anthem Inc’s US$47 billion takeover bid, saying it was inadequate, not in the best interests of shareholders and that Anthem’s management was not fit to lead a merged insurance giant. Anthem on Saturday offered to buy the smaller health insurer for US$184 per share, in what would be the biggest takeover ever in a US industry on the verge of major consolidation. Insurers such as Anthem are searching for ways to cut costs and keep expanding profits amid a surge in enrollment from Obamacare and new rules from the law.
INTERNET
Amazon changes author pay
Amazon.com Inc on Monday said it would start paying writers of ebooks on its Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner’s Lending Library services based on how many pages are read instead of the number of downloads. The change, which Amazon said applies only to authors who self-publish on Kindle, Amazon’s own ebook reader, are to take effect next month. The Seattle-based firm is to continue the practice of setting a monthly Kindle Direct Publishing select global fund.
? AUTOMAKERS
Tesla rejects delay report
Tesla Motors Inc on Monday disputed a report that it was delaying production of the Model 3 to 2018. The company has not changed its plans to introduce the car in 2017, company spokeswoman Khobi Brooklyn said in an e-mailed statement. Earlier on Monday, the Web site Inside EVs said output would not begin until the following year, citing a slide from a June 15 presentation by Tesla chief technology officer JB Straubel at an energy conference.
ELECTRONICS
Bigger PlayStation on way
Sony Corp is to release a new PlayStation 4 with double the storage capacity next month, countering Microsoft’s release of a beefed-up version of rival console Xbox One. The PlayStation Ultimate Player Edition that can store as much as one terabyte of data is to launch in Europe, Africa and Asia on July 15, the Japanese consumer electronics titan said on Monday in a blog post. Pricing details were not disclosed.
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