Losses incurred by the nation’s securities brokerages last month expanded 761.79 percent from the previous month to NT$1.76 billion (US$53.88 million), as shares were hamstrung by the global stock market rout, according to Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data.
Last month, the TAIEX slumped 5.66 percent, or 490.42 points, and market turnover contracted 0.98 percent from July, causing local brokerages’ income from fees to drop 2.81 percent, or NT$1.1 million, from the previous month and leading to about NT$3 billion losses in proprietary trading business, the TWSE said in a statement on Wednesday.
Among brokerages, 30 reported profits last month, while 48 were in the red, the stock exchange said.
In the first eight months, the securities brokerage sector reported aggregate net income of NT$12.71 billion, down 25 percent from a year earlier, it said.
However, fees income declined by 12 percent year-on-year in the eight-month period, while there was NT$4.2 billion less in profit for proprietary trading and an NT$800 million drop in profit for underwriting business over the same period, the stock exchange said, adding that market turnover at the local bourse contracted 3.62 percent annually.
To rejuvenate the sluggish stock market, legislators have put yet another revision to the capital gains tax on stock transactions at top of the agenda and investors are watching closely how politicians will deal with the issue ahead of next year’s presidential and legislative elections.
The benchmark TAIEX closed 1.35 percent higher and the over-the-counter TPEX edged up 0.78 percent yesterday ahead of a decision by the legislature today over whether to pass the third reading of amendments to the Securities Transaction Tax Act (證券交易稅條例) and the Income Tax Act (所得稅法), or refer them for cross-party negotiations, which would mean they could be put on hold for up to one month.
Investors this week have been reluctant to make significant bets on local shares ahead of the decision, while the Taiwan Securities Association (券商公會) said the tax burden for Taiwanese investors is greater than that for regional peers.
The association said in a statement on Tuesday that the nation’s tax burden could be a disincentive to investors, as the individual income tax is poised to rise from 40 percent to 45 percent this year, while tax exemptions on dividend income is expected to be halved.
In comparison, Hong Kong and Singapore do not impose taxes on dividend income, while China’s dividend tax is 20 percent, with investors eligible to have the tax halved if they hold on to dividend paying stocks for more than one month, and exempted if held for more than a year, the association said.
The association said the government should reconsider the way social welfare programs are funded and cease levying supplementary National Health Insurance and long-term care insurance premiums on stock dividends.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li