SHIPPING
FedEx, UPS up on tax hopes
FedEx Corp and United Parcel Service Inc (UPS) yesterday surged the most in more than a year on expectations that they will reap particularly big gains from the tax overhaul package making its way through the US Congress. Shipping companies like FedEx and UPS, as well as airlines and railroads, are especially well-positioned to benefit from a provision allowing them to expense capital equipment immediately, instead of over time. FedEx jumped 4.7 percent to US$241.63 at 1:31pm in New York after soaring as much as 5.3 percent, its biggest intraday gain since September last year. UPS gained as much as 4 percent, the most intraday gain since July 2015.
UNITED KINGDOM
New car registrations down
New car registrations dropped 5 percent in the year to date, putting them on track for the first annual fall since 2011, hit by weaker consumer confidence and uncertainty over the future of diesel, an industry body said yesterday. Sales slumped 11.2 percent last month to 163,541 cars, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, with demand falling among business, fleet and individual buyers. Diesel has been particularly hit this year, with registrations declining 16.1 percent between January and last month, while gasoline rose 3.1 percent in the same period.
RETAIL
FamilyMart mulls HK sale
FamilyMart Uny Holdings Co, Japan’s second-largest convenience store operator, is considering a sale of its Hong Kong retail business, people with knowledge of the matter said. It is seeking to fetch close to US$100 million from any sale, one of the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Deliberations are at an early stage, and Tokyo-based FamilyMart Uny could decide to keep the business, the people said. In Hong Kong, FamilyMart Uny runs department stores targeting the territory’s affluent middle class. Sales in Hong Kong’s supermarket industry fell 0.1 percent in the first 10 months of the year, lagging the 1.2 percent gain in the territory’s overall retail industry, government statistics show.
TECHNOLOGY
Tencent shares decline
Shares of Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) yesterday fell for the fourth time in five sessions as angst over US technology stocks returned, widening the spread between its share price and analysts’ price targets to an unprecedented 19 percent. This is after US$55 billion in value was wiped out from its Nov. 21 high through Friday with global investors cashing in some of this year’s best equity performers. However, of the 40 stock watchers surveyed by Bloomberg, 98 percent maintain a “buy” rating on Tencent — that is the highest proportion ever.
AUSTRALIA
Interest rates unchanged
The central bank yesterday left interest rates at a record low, sparing the country a rude shock ahead of Christmas, as wage growth stagnates and household debt rises. The Reserve Bank slashed rates by 300 basis points to 1.5 percent between November 2011 and August last year. The decision to stand pat came a day before the release of July-to-September economic growth data, with economists forecasting 0.8 percent expansion quarter-on-quarter, lifting the annual rate to 3.1 percent. The Australian dollar edged up to 76.40 US cents after the announcement,from 76.30 US cents before.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts