■ Investors wait on the sidelines
Shares closed little changed yesterday in moderate trade, tracking the lackluster performance of Wall Street overnight, dealers said.
Many investors stayed on the sidelines amid uncertainty surrounding a probe into a top financial regulator over bribery allegations, they said.
The TAIEX closed down 7.33 points or 0.10 percent at the day's low of 7,013.99, on turnover of NT$72.18 billion (US$2.17 billion).
Decliners and risers were almost even at 539 to 538, while 210 stocks were unchanged.
■ CPC raises gasoline prices
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), Taiwan's second-biggest fuel supplier, raised gasoline and diesel prices, matching an increase by larger rival Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油).
Domestic wholesale gasoline and diesel prices rose by NT$0.3 a liter, effective 10am yesterday, Formosa Petrochemical said in a statement.
State-run CPC earlier yesterday increased prices by the same amount, or as much as 2.2 percent, after oil prices climbed, the company said on Tuesday.
■ SMIC `lagging' by 9-12 months
UBS Securities Pte said it estimated Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), China's biggest made-to-order chipmaker, to be nine to 12 months behind its global peers in technology, after the Chinese company reported its third-quarter loss widened.
"The third-quarter results were disappointing and the fourth-quarter guidance uninspiring," William Dong (董成康) at UBS Securities said.
SMIC said on Tuesday its third-quarter net loss had widened to US$35.1 million, or 9.6 cents per American depositary receipt, from US$26.1 million, or 7.2 cents, a year earlier.
Sales rose 19 percent to US$368.9 million, the smallest gain in three quarters. The company forecast fourth-quarter sales will rise 1 percent to 2 percent from the third quarter.
■ Standard's offer accepted
Standard Chartered Plc, a London-based lender that earns two-thirds of its profit in Asia, said its offer to buy Hsinchu International Bank (新竹商銀) has been accepted by 95.4 percent of shareholders.
"It's the intention of Standard Chartered to de-list Hsinchu and to combine its existing Taiwanese operations with Hsinchu by late 2007," the London-based bank said in a statement on Tuesday night after the offer closed.
Standard Chartered on Sept. 29 made a general offer of NT$24.50 for every Hsinchu Bank share, valuing the bank at NT$40.5 billion and marking the first overseas takeover of a Taiwanese lender.
■ Cathay to sell 2/3 of shares
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the nation's biggest financial services company, said it plans to sell 66.7 million shares to overseas investors in the form of global depositary receipts, or GDRs.
The stake, valued at NT$4.3 billion based on the stock's closing price on Tuesday, was bought back in August by Cathay Financial as treasury stocks, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Taiwan regulator requires companies to write off or sell treasury stocks within three years of purchasing them.
■ NT gains on US dollar
The New Taiwan Dollar gained strength against its US counterpart yesterday on weak US economic data and after the Korean won hit a five-month high, dealers said.
The NT dollar rose NT$0.093 to close at NT$33.167 on the Taipei Forex Inc, on turnover of US$643 million.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS