TAIEX higher on strength of NT
Share prices closed 2.19 percent higher yesterday as the currency's continued strength triggered hopes for a stock market boost from more capital inflows, dealers said.
Investors also took note of a firmer finish on Wall Street on Friday after a report that a bailout plan would be announced soon for troubled US bond insurer Ambac Financial, they said.
The weighted index closed up 177.60 points at 8,286.31, after moving between 8,228.92 and 8,307.75, on turnover of NT$165.39 billion (US$5.28 billion).
"Investor zeal for buying equities was easily stoked as the local currency had another day of big appreciation," said Michael Hsu (�?@), assistant vice president at Taiwan Life Asset Management (台壽保投信).
"There is good reason to believe that currency appreciation is precisely what our central bank has in mind," he said. "Not trying to stop the currency from rising further will serve the dual purposes of curbing inflation and inducing capital inflows, mostly to equities."
Chunghwa hits seven-year high
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Taiwan's biggest phone operator, rose to its highest in seven years in Taipei after a proposed land sale raised speculation that the company may sell more real-estate assets.
Chunghwa Telecom shares climbed by the daily limit of 6.9 percent to NT$77, its highest level since Feb. 8, 2001. The benchmark Taiex index gained 2.2 percent.
The company plans to sell a property in Taipei to the Taiwan Stock Exchange for use as a data center, Chunghwa said in a filing on Friday. The transaction is worth about NT$660 million, spokeswoman Shen Fu-fu (沈馥馥) said yesterday.
"The announcement fuels hopes that Chunghwa will profit more from selling its land," said Eric Yao, who helps manage US$152 million at Truswell Securities Investment Trust Co (富鼎投信) in Taipei.
Microsoft to end HD DVD line
Microsoft Corp plans to stop making HD DVD players and cut the price of existing supplies by more than half after the leading promoter of the high-definition video format conceded defeat to Sony Corp's Blu-ray last week.
"From tomorrow [today], we will cut the price to US$49," said Grace Chou (周文英), a Taipei-based spokeswoman for the company. Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console includes a standard DVD player, and customers can buy an HD DVD machine to use with the console at US$119.99 through retailers like Amazon.com.
"It will not have a big impact because we don't sell HD DVD with the Xbox 360, only as an add-on," Chou said.
Chi Mei to open solar cell unit
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), Taiwan's second-largest producer of liquid-crystal displays, plans to invest NT$2 billion (US$64 million) to set up a unit for making solar cells.
The company expects to begin production in the first three months of next year, Loreta Chen (陳靜燕), a spokeswoman of the Tainan-based LCD maker, said yesterday.
Fuel crisis slims car market
Statistics indicate that new car registrations in Taiwan have declined over 30 percent in two years, a clear sign that the car market is continuing to shrink as a possible result of soaring global oil prices, according to a press report issued on Saturday by the Taipei City Motor Vehicles Office.
Last year, 366,022 new cars were registered, showing a 9.6 percent decline year-on-year, according to the press report. Compared with the 2005 figure of 545,856, the downsizing could be expanded to a 33 percent decline, the report said.
The report attributed the decline mainly to high crude oil prices and a weakening global economy.
‘DECENT RESULTS’: The company said it is confident thanks to an improving world economy and uptakes in new wireless and AI technologies, despite US uncertainty Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it plans to build a new server manufacturing factory in the US this year to address US President Donald Trump’s new tariff policy. That would be the second server production base for Pegatron in addition to the existing facilities in Taoyuan, the iPhone assembler said. Servers are one of the new businesses Pegatron has explored in recent years to develop a more balanced product lineup. “We aim to provide our services from a location in the vicinity of our customers,” Pegatron president and chief executive officer Gary Cheng (鄭光治) told an online earnings conference yesterday. “We
It was late morning and steam was rising from water tanks atop the colorful, but opaque-windowed, “soapland” sex parlors in a historic Tokyo red-light district. Walking through the narrow streets, camera in hand, was Beniko — a former sex worker who is trying to capture the spirit of the area once known as Yoshiwara through photography. “People often talk about this neighborhood having a ‘bad history,’” said Beniko, who goes by her nickname. “But the truth is that through the years people have lived here, made a life here, sometimes struggled to survive. I want to share that reality.” In its mid-17th to
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
The battle for artificial intelligence supremacy hinges on microchips, but the semiconductor sector that produces them has a dirty secret: It is a major source of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems. Global chip sales surged more than 19 percent to about US$628 billion last year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, which forecasts double-digit growth again this year. That is adding urgency to reducing the effects of “forever chemicals” — which are also used to make firefighting foam, nonstick pans, raincoats and other everyday items — as are regulators in the US and Europe who are beginning to
RSS