Rallies on the local bourse might extend into the first quarter of next year as the arrival of the 5G era is expected to spur technology product replacement and benefit local firms in their global supply chains, US asset management firm PGIM Inc said yesterday.
The US, China and South Korea have launched commercial 5G services that might become full-blown next year, providing an earnings growth catalyst for local component suppliers, Prudential Financial Inc’s asset management arm said.
Mutual funds and foreign institutional players have raised holdings in local equities in the past several months, pushing the TAIEX above 11,600 points, it said.
The local bourse would continue to attract global capital seeking to take advantage of the 5G transformation, while Taiwanese semiconductor firms have offered rosy business guidance for this quarter and the next, it added.
Handset chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Tuesday unveiled its first 5G system on chip ahead of the launch of 5G smartphones by Chinese brands during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Foreign funds yesterday boosted their net positions by NT$1.44 billion (US$47.21 million), Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed, although the TAIEX shed 0.26 percent to 11,617.08 points on concern about US-China trade talks.
Turnover fell to NT$104.88 billion, from NT$108.87 billion in the previous session, the data showed.
Unease arose after US President Donald Trump signed into law a bill supporting Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters, despite China’s calls for him to block the legislation.
However, UBS Group AG said in a note that the legislation is unlikely to derail the planned inking of a “phase one” deal between Washington and Beijing, as the two sides seek to separate the Hong Kong issue from trade talks.
Trade de-escalation is beneficial to both sides and could result in a black-and-white agreement in January, UBS said.
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