Shares hit three-month high
Share prices closed up 2.06 percent yesterday at a three-month high after Wall Street's overnight gains, dealers said.
The government's move to ease restrictions on Taiwanese business investment in China also boosted investor confidence amid hopes of closer commercial ties with China after the March 22 presidential election, they said.
The weighted index closed up 174.69 points at 8,658.64, a level not seen since Dec.11. Turnover was NT$188.84 billion (US$6.13 billion).
Risers led decliners 1,388 to 703, with 292 stocks unchanged. Sixty stocks closed limit-up and 19 ended limit-down.
Mega International to expand
The Financial Supervisory Com-mission (FSC) yesterday gave its approval to Mega International Commercial Bank's (兆豐國際商銀) applications to set up a representative office in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and a branch in Macau.
"Mega has evaluated the market in the Middle East, aiming to tap into business opportunities there," commission Vice Chairwoman Susan Chang (張秀蓮) told a press briefing yesterday.
Mega International will be the first Taiwanese bank to set up a representative office in the UAE and the nation's existing representative office in Bahrain will be shut down once the bank's office is opened, Chang said.
The bank, a subsidiary of Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), has 19 overseas branches, two representative offices and two subsidiary banks in Thailand and Canada, the commission's press release said.
Eee PC in worldwide launch
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) said yesterday it is planning a worldwide launch of the new low-cost Eee PC series in the second quarter, as rivals Acer Inc and Hewlett Packard Co also plan to launch similar products next quarter.
Asustek's next-generation laptops will include 8.9-inch liquid-crystal-display (LCD) screens, bigger than the 6-inch screen used in the previous products launched last October in Taiwan.
The new Eee PC series will run Microsoft Corp's operating system rather than the Linux system, Asustek said
Taiwan's women eager to retire
Among middle-aged career women in Asia, those in Taiwan are behind only their counterparts in Hong Kong in terms of their eagerness to leave the workforce, a survey released by HSBC showed yesterday.
Almost 24 percent of female Taiwanese respondents aged between 40 and 59 said they wished to retire early, second only to Hong Kong's 26 percent. Singapore was third with 15.5 percent, the survey entitled The Future of Retirement said.
Among respondents aged 60 and above, only 2 percent of Taiwanese women wished to keep working -- second only to China, where the figure was 1 percent.
To prepare for early retirement, Steve Chuang (莊懷德), senior vice president of HSBC wealth management, recommended that career women place more than 50 percent of their investments in equities for a period of more than five years.
NT dollar gains
The New Taiwan dollar advanced for a third day on speculation the central bank will allow further gains in the currency to temper rising consumer prices.
The New Taiwan dollar advanced 0.4 percent against the greenback to NT$30.748, Taipei Forex Inc said.
"The Taiwan dollar's appreciation is a tool for the central bank to help cap inflation," said Yang Kung-yi (楊恭逸), a currency trader at Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (上海商銀) in Taipei.
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
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