Shares closed 0.65 percent higher yesterday, extending gains in active trade boosted by better-than-expected earnings at Apple Computer and Advanced Micro Devices, dealers said.
They said the market's momentum continued to build, breaching strong resistance at 6,400 points to lay the basis for likely further gains.
The TAIEX closed up 41.26 points at 6,418.35, on turnover of NT$106.81 billion (US$3.33 billion). It was the mainboard index's highest level since it reached 6,574.75 on April 28 last year.
"The market managed to set a 15-month [intraday] high thanks to solid buying in bellwether electronics stocks led by foreign investors," said Michael Hsu (許派一), a Jih Sun Securities Investment (日盛投信) assistant vice president.
"With such a positive trend firmly in place, investors need not worry about a downturn unless recent market leaders in the electronics sector sustain declines," he said.
Shares of original-equipment-manufacturers and makers of components used in Apple's iPods surged yesterday.
Inventec Corp (英業達) rose 2.8 percent to close at NT$14.25 and Simplo Technology Corp (新普科技) advanced 4.8 percent to close at 67.40.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (
Shares of Hon Hai were also boosted by speculation that Hon Hai group may supply handset material to the US cellphone maker.
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
ELECTRONICS: Strong growth in cloud services and smart consumer electronics offset computing declines, helping the company to maintain sales momentum, Hon Hai said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday announced that its sales for last month rose 10 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in cloud and networking products amid the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company, also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), reported consolidated sales of NT$540.24 billion (US$18.67 billion) for the month, the highest ever for the period, and a 10.09 percent increase from a year earlier, although it was down 12.26 percent from the previous month. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said its cloud
Video streaming giant Netflix is launching a talent cultivation program in Taiwan aimed at producing high-quality Mandarin content, the company announced in a press release on Thursday. Netflix Chinese language content head Maya Huang (黃怡玫) said that Netflix has long invested in the Taiwanese market, citing the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity launched last year as an example. The fund would continue to dedicate resources to discovering content with the potential to be developed into Chinese-language projects, she added. The financing for the new talent projects seeks to create an ecosystem for content creators and professional development programs, she said. The talent projects
APPRECIATION: The central bank stepped in to stabilize the NT dollar after a surge in foreign institutional investment, triggered by optimism about tariffs and US Fed policy Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, as the central bank intervened in the currency market to curb the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation against the US dollar. Foreign exchange reserves increased by US$5.48 billion from May, reaching an all-time high of US$598.43 billion, the central bank said on Friday. While the central bank did not disclose the scale of its intervention, Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民) said that the currency market remained relatively stable until the middle of last month. However, a shift occurred following the US Federal Reserve’s signal of a