UNITED STATES
Retail sales rebound 0.6%
Retail sales rebounded last month amid a surge in motor vehicle purchases and rise in discretionary spending, pointing to solid demand that reinforces expectations of an interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve in December. The Department of Commerce said retail sales increased 0.6 percent after declining 0.2 percent in August. Sales were up 2.7 percent from a year ago. Other data on Friday suggested a pickup in inflation, with producer prices rising broadly last month to record their biggest year-on-year increase of 0.7 percent since December 2014. The reports were the latest indication that the economy regained momentum in the third quarter.
CHEMICALS
DuPont to sell herbicide unit
DuPont Co is planning to sell a business making herbicides to help reduce potential anti-trust sticking points to a US$59 billion merger with US competitor Dow Chemical Co, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Evercore Partners Inc has been hired as an adviser for the sale, which is expected to generate several hundred million US dollars, the people said. Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont is also considering the disposal of insecticide and seeds units that might be an obstacle to the deal. Dow and DuPont are pushing to complete their planned combination by the end of the year.
STOCK MARKETS
Sarao loses extradition fight
A London-based trader accused of contributing to the 2010 Wall Street “flash crash” by placing bogus orders to spoof the market lost his legal bid to stop extradition on Friday and is to be sent to the US to face trial. Navinder Sarao, 37, who traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, is wanted by US authorities on 22 criminal counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud and market manipulation. A judge initially approved his extradition in March, and on Friday his bid to launch an appeal against that decision was rejected, ending his 18-month legal fight. He is to be extradited within 28 days.
LIFE INSURANCE
AJB Bumiputera mulls sale
AJB Bumiputera 1912, the century-old Indonesian life insurer, is exploring a sale of its business to an overseas investor as it seeks to meet obligations of its more than 5 million policyholders, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Jakarta-based firm is working with a financial adviser to identify potential buyers, including international insurers, the people said. It is restructuring its business to separate good and bad assets and could seek at least US$1 billion from any sale once the revamp is completed, the people said.
BANKING
Scandal effects to persist
Wells Fargo & Co on Friday warned that a bogus accounts scandal would likely dent earnings in coming quarters as the bank’s new CEO faced tough questioning from Wall Street analysts. Wells Fargo signaled that it expects tens of millions of dollars in additional costs to hire more compliance staff after the scandal. The bank also anticipates a hit to revenue, as some customers turn to other banks, executives said. Third-quarter net profit at Wells Fargo was US$5.6 billion, down by 2.6 percent from same period last year. Revenue rose 2 percent to US$22.3 billion, on a 7 percent rise in loans.
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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