CHINA
Housing prices weaken
Home-price gains last month slowed in an additional sign that the property market is cooling. The price of new homes increased an average 0.98 percent from October when they increased 1.02 percent in the 70 cities tracked by the government, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data released by the National Bureau of Statistics yesterday. Last month’s result snapped five straight months of gains of more than 1 percent. Many developers registered slower sales growth despite offering steeper buyer discounts.
HONG KONG
Project units sold in one day
A silver lining appeared in the gloomy housing market when a developer sold all 488 apartments on offer in a single day. Sino Land Co Ltd (信和置業) reported the sellout in Kowloon East on Thursday, but the average price of HK$17,500 (US$2,240) per square foot was about 20 percent below prices for other area projects, Bloomberg Intelligence said. After generating HK$5.7 billion from the sale, Sino Land raised the average price for the project’s second batch of units by 4.2 percent, the Hong Kong Economic Journal said.
EUROZONE
Growth hits four-year low
Worries about global trade tensions and disruptions caused by protests in France pushed business growth in the eurozone this month to a four-year low, a survey showed on Friday. Flash data from a survey of eurozone businesses conducted by IHS Markit showed that the bloc’s composite PMI fell to 51.3 points from 52.7 points last month. A reading of more than 50 points indicates that business is still expanding.
BANKING
Saxo eyes BinckBank shares
BinckBank NV, a Dutch online brokerage firm with a market value of about 319 million euros (US$360.77 million), is considering an offer of 6.35 euros a share by closely held Saxo Bank A/S. Denmark-based Saxo Bank said it was proposing to acquire all of BinckBank’s outstanding shares, which according to data compiled by Bloomberg would put the value of the deal at about 429 million euros. The companies released separate statements confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg that talks are continuing, although there was no certainty that an agreement would be reached.
AUTOMAKERS
New jobs to follow GM layoffs
General Motors Co (GM) said it is offering jobs to most of the 2,800 US factory workers marked for layoffs as the automaker closes four factories next year. GM has 2,700 jobs available in seven US plants, and 1,100 workers have already volunteered to relocate to those facilities, the firm said. Of the 2,800 people being laid off, 1,200 are eligible to retire, GM spokesman Pat Morrissey said.
TECHNOLOGY
Xerox downgraded to junk
Xerox Corp is the newest addition to the set of companies downgraded to junk from investment grade. After being downgraded by Fitch Ratings in August, Moody’s Investors Service on Friday followed suit, citing an uncertain revenue base amid a decline in demand for copy and printing services as well as intense global competition. The company is also on review for a downgrade by S&P Global Ratings, with their watch period ending within the next 10 days.
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