FINANCE
Interest in mutual funds rises
Taiwanese investors showed slightly more interest in mutual fund products last quarter compared with three months earlier, indicating that the market might have bottomed out, although overall sentiment remains weak, JPMorgan Asset Management Ltd said yesterday. JPMorgan’s latest regular savings plan index, a gauge of investor interest in mutual funds, reached 47 in the April-June period, up from 46 in the preceding quarter. The mild increase ended three consecutive quarters of decline and was in line with an ongoing rally in local shares, buoyed by global funds seeking better returns worldwide. Funds on emerging market underpinned the pickup, as uncertainty over the long Brexit process drove money away from advanced markets, JPMorgan said.
PETROCHEMICALS
FPG’s to boost HK venture
Three Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) companies yesterday said they would increase their investment in a joint venture in Hong Kong. Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠) and Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維) released a joint statement saying they would raise their individual investment in, Formosa Synthetic Rubber (Hong Kong) Corp Ltd (台塑合成橡膠工業香港) from US$30 million to US$70 million, thereby lifting their total investment to US$210 million to boost the venture’s operating capital.
ELECTRONICS
Sinbon cautious on Q3
Sinbon Electronics Co (信邦電子), which produces cables, connectors and modems, yesterday reported that sales for last month edged up 1.35 percent year-on-year, but declined 8.4 percent month-on-month to NT$1.07 billion (US$33.74 million). Cumulative sales in the first seven months of the year grew 9.73 percent annually to NT$7.9 billion, the company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing. Sinbon reported a solid net profit of NT$308 million in the second quarter, up 22 percent from a year ago. Earnings per share reached NT$1.41. However, with macro headwinds, such as slower wind power demand in China, a weak outlook for industrial connector cables and a strong yen, the company said it is conservative about prospects this quarter.
HOTELS
Holiday Garden record sales
Hotel Holiday Garden (華園飯店) yesterday reported record sales of NT$144 million for last month, as it entered its peak season and booked contributions from its new US outlets. Sales for last month jumped from NT$72 million a year ago and NT$109 million in June. Cumulative sales in the first seven months surged 90.97 percent to NT$803 million from NT$420 million during the same period last year, the company said. Hotel Holiday Garden shares rose 5.06 percent yesterday in Taipei trading, outranking its peers in the tourism sector.
COMPONENTS
Yageo posts high July sales
Yageo Corp (國巨), the nation’s largest passive components manufacturer, yesterday said consolidated sales reached NT$2.5 billion last month, up 9.6 percent from a year ago and 2 percent from the previous month. Sales of components for computers and consumer electronics including mobile phones, slowed last month, while those for electronics manufacturing services and industrial items increased from the previous month. Aggregate sales in the first seven months of the year increased 7.2 percent from a year ago to NT$17.3 billion, according to the company’s filing with stock exchange.
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