■ TAIEX rises despite US decline
Shares ended slightly higher yesterday, as overnight losses in the US offset the positive impact of solid March revenue figures from local companies, analysts said. The TAIEX closed up 11.20 points, or 0.2 percent, at 6646.74. Turnover fell to NT$99.39 billion (US$3.01 billion) from Tuesday's NT$160.84 billion (US$4.84 billion). Decliners outnumbered advancers 476 to 317, with 182 stocks unchanged. "Market sentiment turned cautious after the modest pullback on NASDAQ and following the recent rally in local shares," said Hsiuli Lee, a manager at Franklin Templeton First Taiwan. Looking ahead, analysts said the index will likely consolidate between 6500 and 6800 points this week before possibly starting a fresh rally. The technology subindex rose slightly, gaining 0.1 percent, with solid March revenue results from local tech firms supporting the sector. Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) was down 0.8 percent at NT$61.50, while United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) fell 0.9 percent to NT$31.60, following the overnight decline on NASDAQ.
■ UMC sales rise to NT$9 billion
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world's second largest contract chipmaker, saw a 27.63 percent year-on-year rise in last month's sales, the company said yesterday. March sales came in at NT$9.01 billion (US$273.03 million), up 12.19 percent from the NT$8.03 billion posted for February. Sales in the March quarter rose to NT$25.33 billion from NT$17.9 billion previously. At a Feb. 4 investor conference, UMC vice chairman Peter Chang (張崇德) said wafer shipments in the three months to March were seen flat from the previous quarter, while capacity utilization is expected to rise to 100 percent from 96 percent after factoring in fab maintenance.
■ Cost of electricity to climb?
Vice Economics Minister Steve Chen (陳瑞隆) told lawmakers yesterday that the ministry will review electricity prices in two weeks in the face of rising international crude oil and coal prices. As the recent hike in international oil and coal prices has resulted in an increase of the cost of electricity generation, Chen said that the ministry will have a total review on the price of electricity and the impact a price adjustment will have on the local economy and industry.
■ China Steel to raise prices
China Steel Corp (中鋼) said it will increase export prices by one-fifth on average in the three months ending July 31 because of higher raw material and transportation costs. The company plans to raise hot-rolled steel prices by US$140 a ton to US$500 for Southeast Asian customers, and by US$135 for Chinese buyers. China Steel, which reviews prices at the end of each quarter, said the increase is a weighted average of the change in prices across different products. The outlook for the second half of this year is still optimistic though any further price increases may be smaller, the company said. China Steel also plans to increase cold-rolled steel sheet prices by US$100 a ton for its customers in China and Southeast Asia for the May-July period. The steelmaker sold 10 million tons of steel in each of the last two years.
■ NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday turned strong against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.066 to close at NT$32.924 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$642 million.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
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