Shares in Taiwan closed higher yesterday, the last trading session of the year, as last-minute buying in conglomerate stocks lent support to the broader market, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed up 58.07 points, or 0.7 percent, at 8,338.06, after moving between 8,258.73 and 8,338.06. Turnover totaled NT$47.88 billion (US$1.45 billion) during the session.
Buying in Taiwan’s equity market yesterday focused on the financial sector, which has been a market laggard, and on semiconductor stocks, but the trading volume remained low, as many foreign investors were still away for the holiday season, dealers said.
“The last-minute buying lifted today’s trading volume by about NT$8 billion,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang said. “Without that buying, turnover would have been even lower in the absence of many foreign institutional investors.”
Due to the thin turnover, the local market remained in consolidation mode.
“It was no surprise that the index failed to challenge 8,400 points today [yesterday],” Huang said.
On the foreign exchange market, the New Taiwan dollar lost NT$0.016 to close at NT$33.066 against the US currency on the back of continued intervention by the central bank to improve Taiwanese exporters’ competitive edge in the international market.
For all of last year, the NT dollar declined NT$1.348, or about 4.25 percent, against the US dollar, making it the third consecutive year in which the local dollar trended lower.
Meanwhile, regional stock markets were mixed in thin trading on New Year’s Eve after the latest decline in oil prices pulled Wall Street lower, with the Shanghai Composite Index retreating 0.9 percent to 3,539.18 points, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.15 percent to 21,914.4.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.5 percent to 5,295.9 and India’s SENSEX gained 0.1 percent to 25,980.85. Benchmarks in New Zealand and Thailand also advanced, while Singapore declined. Markets in Japan and South Korea were closed for the New Year holiday.
“This year has been a very volatile and difficult year as the markets were assaulted by volatility from different asset classes,” said Kelvin Tay (鄭汪清), regional chief investment officer at UBS wealth management business in Singapore. “The sharp sell-off in the commodities market badly affected the Asian currency markets, especially Southeast Asian currencies and equities.”
Mizuho Bank Ltd yesterday said lingering and familiar risks are not purged at the stroke of midnight.
The Japanese bank cited fluctuating oil prices and uncertainty over the impact of monetary policy changes in the US, Europe and Japan.
“Instead, the risk landscape is a continuum that warrants caution,” the bank said in a report.
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],”
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
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