Local investors are optimistic about the local bourse’s performance over the next 12 months following the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and an easing of the European credit crisis, a survey said yesterday.
The index of local investor confidence in achieving investment goals over the next year was 28.53 points, which is in the same range as before the financial crisis, according to a survey jointly released by Shih Hsin University and the Chinese-language Business Today weekly.
However, the index showed a drop of 16.02 points from December, when the last poll results were released.
“The signing of the ECFA with China has its pros and cons. But generally speaking, the pros outweigh the cons at this time as it will improve the economies of both sides,” Kuo Min-hua (郭敏華), an associate professor of finance at Shih Hsin, told a press briefing.
International relations and the global economy will also weigh on investment sentiment, she said.
More than 60 percent of those polled indicated the ECFA, the European debt crisis, the outflow of foreign investments and the performance of global stock markets would affect their willingness to invest more on the TAIEX, the survey said.
Only 7 percent of those polled in December said an ECFA would impact on their willingness to invest, but the percentage rose to 20.6 percent this time.
The survey was conducted from June 10 to June 20 by telephone, with 1,069 valid samples. The sampling error was 3 percent.
The poll also showed an increase of 5.37 points to 46.87 points in the index of people’s confidence in maintaining their current income over the next 12 months.
Despite the upbeat mood, investment sentiment for the third quarter is on the rocks. The index of optimism on hitting investment goals over the next three months dipped to minus 21.61 points from an earlier 37.25 points, while the index of optimism on the performance of the local bourse over the next three months dived to minus 10.94 points from 47.87 points last December, the results showed.
The TAIEX closed 1.27 percent lower at 7,329.4 points yesterday. The index hit its highest mark of the year — 8,357 points — in January.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
RSS