STOCKS
HTC shares surge to limit
HTC Corp (宏達電) shares surged by the daily maximum of 10 percent to close at NT$44.35 in Taipei trading yesterday, after the company announced a shares buyback program on Monday night. After the market close, investors had still placed orders for an additional 9.59 million HTC shares, indicating further purchases are possible. HTC yesterday began to buy back 50 million of its shares, or 6 percent of outstanding shares, at between NT$35 and NT$60 per share on the open market, according to the company. HTC plans to spend up to US$60 million in the buyback scheme, which is to run through the next two months until Oct. 24, and the company will cancel those shares after completing the repurchase, it said.
STOCKS
Goldsun approves buy-back
Taiwan Goldsun Building Materials Co (國產建材) yesterday said its board approved a plan to buy back 100 million shares, or 6.58 percent of its outstanding shares, on the open market in an attempt to stabilize the company’s share price. The buy-back scheme is to begin today and run through Oct. 23, Goldsun Building said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company plans to repurchase its shares at between NT$6 and NT$10 per share. Its shares have dropped 33.67 percent so far this year and closed at NT$7.33 in Taipei trading yesterday.
MACROECONOMICS
Inter-bank rate lowered
The central bank yesterday lowered the overnight interbank rate to 0.32 percent, from 0.37 percent, as the market remains worried about the economic slowdown in China. The overnight rate is the price paid for one-day loans among banks that define the short end of the yield curve. The central bank has guided the rate lower in recent weeks after it stayed unchanged at 0.388 percent for three years, as the monetary authority wants to reduce shortterm financing costs for banks, thus lowering local businesses’ financing costs while raising the market’s liquidity.
TECHNOLOGY
Inventec, Siemens to link up
Contract PC maker Inventec Corp (英業達) on Monday signed a letter of intent with Siemens PLM Software, a subsidiary of Siemens AG, in a bid to cash in on a global push into upgrading manufacturing operations. Under the terms of the agreement, Siemens PLM Software is to allow its solutions such as Web-based intelligent manufacturing systems to be used in Inventec’s factories, making Inventec a benchmark of Siemens PLM Software’s industrial cooperation in Taiwan, Inventec said in a statement. The agreement refelcts a global push into the “Industry 4.0” era, according to Siemens.
CENTRAL BANKS
Perng Fai-nan praised
Central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) was named one of the world’s nine best central bankers this year by Global Finance magazine on Monday and given an “A” grade for the 11th year in a row. It was the 12th “A” the 76-year-old central banker has received during his time as governor of the central bank from 1998 to the present, with his first “A” coming in 2000. Other central bank chiefs given an “A” in this year’s Global Finance ranking were the heads of central banks in the Czech Republic, the EU, India, Israel, Malaysia, Philippines, Paraguay and Peru, according to the report published on Monday.
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],”