Taiwan’s mutual-fund balance dropped 4.91 percent last month, as some foreign funds moved out of the local market amid growing global uncertainty, JPMorgan Asset Management Ltd said.
Mutual funds dropped by NT$112 billion (US$3.54 billion) to NT$2.17 trillion, falling below the NT$2.2 trillion mark for the first time in six months, as global funds sought returns in other investment instruments, JPMorgan Taiwan said.
The trend is fueling concern that foreign funds might flow to mature markets ahead of a potential interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve in December.
“In the past, equity and multi-asset funds gain when currency funds decline, but fund managers prefer to stay on the sideline this time around until the uncertainty stabilizes,” JPMorgan Taiwan said.
Currency funds stood at NT$860.1 billion last month, down 10.46 percent from one month earlier, the fund house said. Altogether, currency funds plunged 14.78 percent for the first nine months.
Equity funds saw a 0.4 percent decline, while onshore and offshore fixed-income products retreated 4.89 percent and 1.82 percent respectively, it said.
The light turnover in the local bourse reflected the waning investment interest.
Mutual funds trimmed another NT$37.16 million worth of local shares yesterday after cutting their positions by NT$365.08 million last month, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Net pullout accelerated to NT$2.05 billion this month, while foreign funds lowered their positions by NT$514.62 million, according to bourse statistics.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
NEW MODELS: AI researchers are facing challenges in managing deceptive behaviors, with limited regulation and testing, as the race for advanced models intensifies The world’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors — lying, scheming and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic PBC’s latest creation, Claude 4, lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatening to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: More than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still do not fully understand how their own creations work. Yet the race to