Equity investors in Taiwan suffered average losses of about NT$250,000 (US$7,560) last year, as the benchmark index fell more than 10 percent, market statistics showed on Thursday.
The TAIEX closed 0.7 percent higher at 8,338.06 points on Thursday, the last trading day of the year.
However, the index dropped 10.41 percent, or 969.20 points, for the year, the steepest annual decline since 2011, when it fell 21.18 percent.
On average, equity investors sustained losses of NT$250,000, which were calculated based on 9.59 million valid securities investment accounts after a sharp annual decline of NT$2.41 trillion in market capitalization on the main board.
Market capitalization on the main board totaled NT$24.46 trillion as of Thursday.
The losses by equity investors eroded average earnings of NT$248,000 by investors in 2014, when the TAIEX rose by an annual 8.08 percent to close at a 25-year high of 9,307.26 points.
The main board started off well last year, although market sentiment was severely affected by the debt crisis in Greece.
Buying was sparked by the European Central Bank’s move to ease its monetary policy, which offset the impact of the Greek financial crisis, dealers said.
On April 27 last year, the TAIEX breached the 10,000-point mark briefly for the first time in 15 years. The next day, it hit 10,014.28 points intraday, although it fell to 9,956.83 points by the close.
However, after those two sessions, shares started to move lower amid lingering concerns over domestic economic fundamentals.
The government lowered its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth several times, as exports plunged amid falling global demand.
While the government’s most recent forecast for last year’s GDP growth was 1.06 percent, several economic think tanks have said it would be difficult to achieve 1 percent growth.
Investor confidence was hit by global financial turmoil in August, when the People’s Bank of China sharply cut the yuan’s reference rate against the US dollar, sending the Chinese currency into a tailspin.
As a result, the TAIEX fell to 7,203.07 on Aug. 24, an intraday low this year, before the National Financial Stabilization Fund (國安基金) moved in to prop up share prices.
The index subsequently rebounded to 8,871.87 points in November, but selling re-emerged, pushing the index below the 8,000-point mark again earlier last month due to an interest hike in the US and weaker oil prices.
The average daily turnover on the local main board for last year was about NT$92.5 billion, compared with NT$92.92 billion in 2014.
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