Stocks dropped, paced by Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) and Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運), on concern they will face higher insurance costs for ships bound for the Persian Gulf because of the US-led attack on Iraq.
The TAIEX dropped 12.33, or 0.3 percent, to close at 4,586.92. MSCI Taiwan futures for February delivery in Singapore rose 0.2 percent to 198.60. The Taiwan Futures Index dropped 0.2 percent to 4580. Almost two shares fell for each one that gained. The benchmark earlier rose as much as 0.4 percent.
Many of the nation's largest exporters such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
"Most investors remain cautious, waiting for the war to unfold," said Edward Hsieh, who manages about US$24 million at Duo Fu Fund at First Global Investment Trust Co (
Evergreen Marine fell NT$0.30, or 1.1 percent, to NT$26.70. Yang Ming Marine fell NT$0.80, or 4.0 percent, to NT$19.10.
TSMC, the world's largest supplier of made-to-order chips, shed NT$0.10, or 0.2 percent, to NT$48.50. UMC lost NT$0.30, or 1.4 percent, to NT$21.60. Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) rose NT$0.80, or 1.8 percent, to NT$46.10.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co analyst Graham Cunningham upgraded his rating on Formosa to "Overweight" from "Neutral," citing strong earnings outlook on strong demand in China.
President Chain Store Co (
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) forecast that its wafer shipments this quarter would grow up to 7 percent sequentially and the factory utilization rate would rise to 75 percent, indicating that customers did not alter their ordering behavior due to the US President Donald Trump’s capricious US tariff policies. However, the uncertainty about US tariffs has weighed on the chipmaker’s business visibility for the second half of this year, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said at an online earnings conference yesterday. “Although the escalating trade tensions and global tariff policies have increased uncertainty in the semiconductor industry, we have not
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
SK Hynix Inc warned of increased volatility in the second half of this year despite resilient demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips from big tech providers, reflecting the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs. The company reported a better-than-projected 158 percent jump in March-quarter operating income, propelled in part by stockpiling ahead of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. SK Hynix stuck with a forecast for a doubling in demand for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) essential to Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, which in turn drive giant data centers built by the likes of Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. That SK Hynix is maintaining its
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