Large traders held back from local equities last year due to volatility on global stock markets, although listed firms on the main bourse saw their combined revenue rise 7.33 percent for the whole of last year and the average daily turnover expanded 24.16 percent to NT$130.21 billion (US$4.23 million), according to data released by the Financial Supervisory Commission and the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Large traders are defined as those who trade shares at or higher than NT$500 million in a quarter, Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director-General Tsai Li-ling (蔡麗玲) told a news conference on Thursday.
The number of large traders fell to 1,137 in the fourth quarter of last year, compared with 1,507 in the third quarter and a record level of 1,579 in the second quarter, the data showed.
A quarterly drop of 370 large traders marked not only the highest quarterly fall since the 552 recorded in the second quarter of 2012, but also reflected the impact of negative factors such as a more than 10 percent decline in the TAIEX in October, volatile US equity markets and concerns over the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes, Tsai told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.
While the number of large traders was on the decline, it still remained more than 1,000 for the sixth consecutive quarter as the listed firms’ fundamentals remained sound, Tsai said.
Aggregate revenue at the 928 firms listed on the main bourse totaled NT$32.78 trillion last year, up NT$2.24 trillion from 2017, with 608 firms’ revenue rising and 320 falling, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) retained its title as the nation’s largest listed firm in terms of annual revenue with NT$5.29 trillion, up 12.5 percent from a year earlier and a new record.
Pegatron Corp (和碩) was in second place, generating NT$1.34 trillion in revenue, up 12.3 percent from 2017, ahead of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), whose revenue hit NT$1.03 trillion, up 5.5 percent, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) came in fourth, with revenue edging up 0.6 percent to NT$1.02 billion, ahead of Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) with NT$967.68 billion, up 9 percent year-on-year.
Most sectors reported positive revenue growth last year, while three — optoelectronics, communications and the Internet, and automobiles — reported declines of 8.36 percent, 5.53 percent and 1 percent respectively, the data showed.
The best-performing sectors were building materials and construction, cement, and oil and gas, with revenue increases of 29.37 percent, 26.01 percent and 22.67 percent respectively.
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
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)
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