EQUITIES
Traders wary before election
Shares in Taiwan yesterday closed below 9,700 points after trading within a narrow range as investors appeared cautious ahead of today’s nine-in-one local elections, dealers said. Many investors stayed on the sidelines, resulting in the lowest turnover for a single day this year, at a time when most large-cap stocks in the electronics and non-technology sectors remained in the doldrums, they said. The TAIEX closed down 47.41 points, or 0.49 percent, at 9,667.30, after moving between 9,654.91 and 9,738.80. Turnover was NT$76.599 billion (US$2.48 billion). Foreign institutional investors bought a net NT$82 million in shares, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said.
ECONOMY
Deposits boost M1B, M2
Last month’s M1B — a measure of the money in circulation — grew 5.31 percent year-on-year from 5.22 percent in September, while M2 — which includes the M1B, time deposits, foreign-currency deposits and mutual funds — saw annual growth increase to 3.39 percent from 3.34 percent, the central bank said in a statement yesterday. The rates were due to growth in passbook savings deposits, the bank said. For the first 10 months, the average annual growth rates of M1B and M2 were 5.3 percent and 3.6 percent respectively, it said.
FINANCE
Interest rates fall slightly
The nation’s five major state-run banks last month saw their average lending interest rates fall to 1.36 percent, down 0.014 percentage points from 1.374 percent in September. The five lenders are Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行), Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行). The decline reflects falling interest rates applying to loans intended for companies’ working capital and capital expenditure, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday. Excluding government loans, interest rates averaged 1.418 percent, up 0.021 percentage points from 1.397 percent a month earlier, the central bank said.
EQUITIES
TWSE to close 11 days
The TWSE is to close for 11 days during the Lunar New Year holiday next year, it announced on Tuesday. The last trading day is to be on Jan. 30, and it is to reopen on Feb. 11, the TWSE said. Based on statistics from 2000, the only years the exchange had an 11-day holiday were in 2002, 2007 and 2013. According to a calendar released by the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration, the Lunar New Year holiday period is to be from Feb. 2 to Feb. 10.
SEMICONDUCTORS
N America billings up yearly
North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment last month reported worldwide billings of US$2.06 billion, trade group SEMI said in a statement on Tuesday. The three-month average of worldwide billings was 0.9 percent lower than September’s US$2.07 billion, but up 2 percent from US$2.02 billion a year earlier, SEMI said. “October billings of North American equipment suppliers reflect near-term weakening of demand for PCs, mobile phones and servers,” SEMI CEO Ajit Manocha said in a statement. “Additionally, memory manufacturers have pulled back investments in response to recent softening of memory pricing.”
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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day