Solar energy stocks got a boost yesterday morning on hopes that global demand would increase this year, while product prices have shown signs of rebounding, prompting investors to buy into these stocks, dealers said.
Hopes of higher demand were raised by a research report forecasting that worldwide solar equipment installation this year would increase almost 20 percent from a year earlier, the dealers said.
Solartech Energy Corp (昇陽科技) shares rose 2.37 percent to close at NT$19.4 and Danen Technology Corp (達能) shares rallied 3.73 percent to NT$9.18. Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技) shares surged 9.87 percent to NT$16.70.
“As the broader market has fallen into consolidation mode with many large-cap stocks slowing, investors tended to target smaller stocks that have positive leads,” Hua Nan Securities (華南永昌證券) analyst Kevin Su (蘇俊宏) said. “Today, solar energy stocks have come under the market spotlight.”
In a research report released by Taipei-based market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技), solar energy equipment installation for this year is expected to hit 52 gigawatts (GW), up 18 percent from a year earlier.
In the first quarter of this year, solar energy equipment installation topped 12GW, accounting for about 23 percent of the estimated total for the year, TrendForce said.
China had the largest demand in the January-to-March quarter after installing 5.04GW in solar energy equipment, a quarterly record-high for the Chinese market.
Japan came in second with 1.95GW in solar energy equipment in the first quarter, although the Japanese government has slashed subsidies on solar energy equipment purchases. The figure shows that demand in Japan remains strong, TrendForce said.
The US ranked as the third-largest solar energy equipment buyer in the world, with purchases of 1.3GW in the first quarter. It was the first time the US had installed more solar energy equipment than traditional power generation equipment, the report said.
“To my knowledge, prices of multi-silicon wafers for solar energy equipment production use are on the road to recovery,” Su said.
“That’s why many bargain hunters have been rushing to pick up these stocks soon after the local bourse opened and investors were keen to take advantage of their relatively low valuations after recent sell-offs,” he said.
Solartech is one of the beneficiaries of recovering product prices. Solartech posted NT$980 million (US$31.5 million) in consolidated sales last month, up 38.56 percent from a month earlier and also up 18.3 percent from a year earlier.
Danen saw its sales rebound last month, when its consolidated sales rose 2.14 percent from a month earlier to NT$123 million, while falling 27.6 percent from the prior year.
The firm is expected to accelerate monthly in the third quarter due to higher product prices.
Green Energy has signed an agreement in which Eversol Corp (旭晶能源) will serve as a contract manufacturer of multi-silicon wafers for Green Energy.
Market analysts said that the cooperation is expected to help Green Energy secure more capacity of multi-silicon wafers to meet rising global demand.
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