BROKERAGES
Profits up on higher turnover
Statistics compiled by the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed that local securities firms posted NT$550 million (US$17.23 million) in net profit last month, as the average daily turnover on the main board grew 14.37 percent from a month earlier to NT$75.6 billion, leading to a 17 percent increase in fee income. However, in the first 11 months of this year, securities firms posted net profit of NT$19.4 billion, compared with NT$21.2 billion the previous year, as the average daily turnover shrank by 15 percent year-on-year, the exchange said.
BANKING
Yuan deposits bounce back
Yuan deposits increased 0.16 percent month-on-month to 309.023 billion yuan (US$44.56 billion) last month, reversing a decline the previous month, driven mainly by local companies’ fund management, the central bank said yesterday. Yuan deposits at banks’ domestic banking units grew 0.62 percent to 273.65 billion yuan from the previous month, while yuan deposits at their overseas banking units declined 3.26 percent to 35.38 billion yuan, the central bank said.
CHIP TESTERS
SPIL cuts capital expenditure
Siliconware Precision Industries Co Ltd (SPIL, 矽品精密) yesterday said its board approved capital expenditure of NT$15.5 billion for next year, compared with a budget of NT$17.9 billion this year. Next year’s expenditure would be used to boost capacity and in research and development, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
BANKING
Manila branch to open today
State-run First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), the banking arm of First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), is to open a branch in Manila today, when it is scheduled to obtain an operating license from the Philippine regulator, the local lender said in a statement yesterday. The branch would help extend the company’s presence in ASEAN markets in line with the government’s “new southbound policy” intended to cut the nation’s economic dependence on China. The Manila branch is mainly to focus on lending, savings, trade financing, remittances and foreign exchange, it said.
ELECTRONICS
HTC’s Vive to be No. 2 seller
HTC Corp’s (宏達電) Vive virtual-reality headset is expected to rank as the No. 2 bestseller worldwide in its category this year, advisory firm Canalys said on Wednesday. Canalys forecast HTC would ship 500,000 units this year, second only to Sony Corp’s PlayStation VR with an estimated 800,000 units. HTC’s US$100 discount on the Vive on Black Friday and Cyber Monday during the US Thanksgiving season was one of the factors that helped boost its sales in the US market, Canalys said. Another factor was HTC’s big marketing push in China, it said.
INTERNET
Meitu Inc IPO disappoints
Chinese beauty app Meitu Inc (美圖) clung to its offer price on its first day of trading, a less-than-stellar debut for Hong Kong’s largest technology initial public offering (IPO) in almost a decade. Meitu’s shares closed at HK$8.50, unchanged from the offer price set at the bottom of a marketed range. The mobile app developer and phone maker is valued at HK$35.9 billion (US$4.6 billion). Meitu expects its Internet services, which include ads and virtual gifts, to break even by the end of next year, according to its prospectus.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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