Taiwanese shares yesterday moved higher amid reduced concerns over US-China trade disputes, but the upturn was limited as some investors shifted to the sell side to take profits, dealers said.
Driven by solid buying in contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the bellwether electronics sector helped prop up the wider market, although some smaller tech stocks fell, dealers said.
Investors remained cautious ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s two-day policymaking meeting that opened yesterday in Washington, they said.
The TAIEX ended up 18.85 points, or 0.17 percent, at 11,333.87, after moving between 11,292.83 and 11,373,95.
Turnover totaled NT$145.338 billion (US$4.76 billion) during the session.
Investors were also chasing TSMC shares amid optimism about the company’s fundamentals and its lead in the global chipmaker market, dealers said.
TSMC, which holds more than a 50 percent share of the global pure wafer foundry market, saw shares rise 1.36 percent to close at the day’s high of NT$298.5.
The stock contributed about 0.33 percent to the rise of the electronics sector and about 40 points to the TAIEX’s gains.
However, smaller tech stocks in the printed circuit board business dropped.
Compeq Manufacturing Co (華通) ended 2.51 percent lower at NT$40.75, and Unimicron Corp (欣興) fell 1.26 percent to close at NT$46.9.
Among the non-tech stocks, Formosa Chemical & Fibre Corp (台灣化纖) dropped 0.22 percent to close at NT$88.7, Eclat Textile Co (儒鴻) lost 0.85 percent to end at NT$409 and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) closed unchanged at NT$96.90.
In the financial sector, which ended up 0.15 percent, Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) rose 0.34 percent to close at NT$29.7, while Shanghai Savings & Commercial Bank (上海商業儲蓄銀行) ended down 0.19 percent at NT$51.8.
Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed that foreign institutional investors bought a net NT$6.41 billion worth of shares on the main board, after a net buy of NT$6.94 billion on Monday.
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