■ Shares slightly up
Shares closed 0.66 percent higher yesterday as bargain-hunting in bellwether technology stocks perked up a market that had been sluggish after Wall Street's mixed performance overnight, dealers said.
Local technology shares attracted fresh foreign investor support after gains in their New York listed peers, they said.
The TAIEX was up 48.21 points at 7,309.69, on turnover of NT$102.44 billion (US$3.11 billion). Risers led decliners 589 to 535, with 217 stocks unchanged.
■ CPC cuts gas prices
State-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油) announced yesterday it would cut wholesale gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.6 per liter. The new rates went into effect at 12am.
The adjusted retail prices for 98-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$27.6, 95-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$26.1, 92-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$25.4 and top-grade diesel oil is NT$22.1 per liter, CPC said in a statement.
■ China-bound investments up
The Investment Commission said yesterday it had approved 90 applications for China-bound investments totaling US$566.47 million last month, up 7.59 percent from a year earlier.
The commission also approved 30 non-China outbound investment applications worth US$156.76 million, down from US$177.67 million.
In the first 10 months to last month, the commission approved 879 China-bound investment applications worth US$5.89 billion, with a cumulative value up 24.79 percent year-on-year.
During the period, the commission approved 397 non-China outbound investment applications worth US$2.86 billion, up 41.82 percent from last year.
■ Mega to buy TBB shares
State-controlled Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), the nation's third-largest financial group, decided yesterday to partake in Taiwan Business Bank's (TBB, 臺灣企銀) recapitalization program in proportion to its shareholdings in the smaller rival.
Mega Financial's board agreed yesterday to subscribe for 1.07 million TBB shares at NT$9.65 per share during the bank's NT$10 billion fundraising plan, which would in turn dilute the company's holdings to 13.44 percent from 14.38 percent originally, the company said in a statement.
The move will help Mega Financial reduce its holdings cost per share, the statement read.
Meanwhile, TBB is expected to garner extra interest income of NT$339 million after using the funds raised to finance its lending business, the company said.
■ Retailer makes costly error
Books.com.tw (博客來網路書店), the nation's largest online bookstore, yesterday morning placed incorrect prices on two types of memory cards, leading to a loss of up to NT$550,000.
The firm mistakenly marked the price of the 2GB memory card at NT$1,520 when it should have been sold at NT$3,830, a statement said. The price of the 1GB memory card was marked as NT$650, nearly half the market price of NT$1,520.
Within more than eight hours, nearly 300 orders were placed, with around two-thirds of the purchases made on 2GB cards, public relations official Chiang Lih-ying (江俐瑩) said.
The firm promised that it would honor these deals and absorb the losses incurred from pricing differences, she added.
■ NT rises against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against its US counterpart yesterday, climbing NT$0.063 to close at NT$32.873 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$769 million.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
RSS