PHARMACEUTICALS
Fitch cuts Teva rating to junk
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd’s credit rating on Monday was cut to junk by Fitch Ratings Inc as the Israeli company struggles with declining prices for generic drugs and high debt. “Teva is facing significant operational stress at a time when it needs to reduce debt” from a US$40 billion acquisition of Allergan PLC’s generics business last year, Fitch said in a statement. Sales of Copaxone, a multiple sclerosis medicine that is Teva’s biggest single product, are struggling as well, Fitch said. The ratings firm predicted that Teva would have to either sell assets or find external sources of financing to meet its obligations. Fitch downgraded its rating from “BBB-” to “BB.” Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC rates the debt “BBB-,” and Moody’s Investors Service has a “Baa3” rating, the lowest investment-grade ratings at the firms. Both have a negative outlook.
CRYPTOCURRENCY
Asset indices launched
VanEck Associates Corp’s VanEck’s MV Index Solutions unit is partnering with CryptoCompare, a London-based digital asset data provider, to offer 12 single digital asset indices, including for bitcoin and ether, and four indices tracking baskets of five to 100 cryptocurrencies. The firm on Sept. 27 withdrew an application to list a bitcoin derivatives exchange-traded fund after the US Securities and Exchange Commission said it would not review a petition for a fund that intends to invest in instruments that are not yet available. The indices incorporate trade data from about 50 cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide, with prices weighted by volume. The indices are live and some have historic data back to 2014, VanEck said. Separately, Goldman Sachs Group Inc analysts on Sunday said in a note that bitcoin might hit US$8,000, but that could be the peak for a while. Analysts said that the cryptocurrency is entering the third of five waves of growth, citing pricing levels tracked by technical analysts.
SMARTPHONES
Top court rules for Apple
The US Supreme Court on Monday upheld a US$120 million patent award Samsung Electronics Co Ltd was ordered to pay Apple Inc. The justices let stand without comment an appeals court verdict reinstating the award for Apple, which sued Samsung over patents for “slide to unlock” and other features used on smartphones. The case is separate from a bigger patent court battle in which Samsung was initially ordered to pay US$1 billion to the iPhone maker. That case is set for a new trial over some elements of the damages awarded. Monday’s ruling involved some smartphone features Apple alleged were copied by the South Korean electronics giant. Samsung had claimed these features were “obvious” and thus not able to be patented.
CHINA
Minister details import fair
Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan (鐘山) has laid out plans for an import fair aimed at helping foreign companies sell more to the domestic market, a move aimed at curbing the country’s trade surplus with the US ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing this week. The first-ever China International Import Expo, which runs from Nov. 5 to Nov. 10 next year in Shanghai, is a signal that President Xi Jinping (習近平) is following through on pledges to further open the nation’s economy, Zhong said. Tax, fiscal and administrative measures would also be rolled out to support the initiative, he added. “In the coming five years, [China] is expected to import more than US$10 trillion of goods and services,” Zhong said.
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
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
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)