Stocks rose to their highest in nearly 42 months yesterday, led by exporters such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC,
The TAIEX gained for a fourth day, jumping 137.89, or 2 percent, to 6,888.43. Taiex Futures for March delivery added 2.4 percent to 6,968.
About six stocks gained for every five that declined. Shares worth NT$233.5 billion (US$7 billion) traded, the highest since April 11, 2000.
The US economy expanded at a 4.1 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter as companies rebuilt inventories, the US Commerce Department said on Friday.
Gains on Asian bourses, including Hong Kong and Japan, added to the local market's upward momentum. Shares also gained after a weekend election rally ended peacefully, easing some investors' worry that the demonstration could turn violent.
"Having a peaceful demonstration with more than 1 million people showed the election can be carried out with no violence," said Mike Shiao, who manages US$45 million at Invesco Taiwan Ltd (
"Taiwan stocks will move according to the fundamentals, regardless of the outcome of the election," he said.
TSMC, which counts on the US for more than three-quarters of its sales, rose NT$1, or 1.6 percent, to NT$64.50. Rival United Microelectronics Corp (
Hua Nan Financial Holdings Co (
First Financial rose NT$1.90, or 6.9 percent, to NT$29.50.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
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