TAIEX closes higher
Share prices closed 0.91 percent higher yesterday with investors waiting for vice president-elect Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), who is attending an economic forum in China, to outline a new blueprint for Taiwan’s economic development, dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 80.18 points at 8,909.58, after moving in the range of 8,840.04 and 8,937.12, on turnover of NT$203.18 billion (US$6.71 billion).
Risers led decliners 1,236 to 982, with 330 stocks unchanged. A total of 29 stocks closed limit-up, while 14 were limit-down.
In the week to yesterday, the weighted index closed up 313.24 points or 3.64 percent at 8,909.58 after a 0.31 percent decline a week earlier. Average daily turnover stood at NT$147.43 billion, compared with NT$136.61 billion a week ago.
FAT shareholders want NT$3.16
Shareholders at Far Eastern Air Transport Co (FAT, 遠東航空 ) yesterday approved a private placement proposal to help improve its financial strength.
At an extraordinary shareholder meeting held yesterday, Far Eastern Air shareholders demanded that its management sell a big tranche of securities to the interested investors at a price of no less than NT$3.16 per share.
Shareholders criticized the management for planning to sell the company too cheap, as the board of directors had earlier proposed selling new shares to potential investors at a price of no less than NT$1 per share.
But management expressed concern that the NT$3.16 offer might not work to attract new investors, as the company reported a net value of only NT$1.597 as of the end of February.
Realtek shares plummet
Realtek Semiconductor Corp’s (瑞昱半導體) share price yesterday fell the most in almost two months after the chip designer lost a patent lawsuit to 3Com Corp, prompting Goldman, Sachs & Co to cut its investment rating on the stock.
Realtek slid by the daily limit of 7 percent, the most since Feb. 12, to close at NT$89.20 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The Hsinchu-based company was ordered to pay 3Com US$45.3 million after a federal jury in San Francisco found on April 9 that Realtek willfully infringed three 3Com patents.
Goldman downgraded the stock to “neutral” from “buy” and lowered their 12-month share-price estimate to NT$90 from NT$118.
THSRC expects new milestone
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) said yesterday that with passenger volume continuing to rise, it is now expecting the 23 millionth passenger, a number equal to the nation’s total population.
THSRC officials said that, as of Thursday, the company had sold 22,873,331 high speed rail tickets, and they think that it will see the 23 millionth passenger in the next few days.
To celebrate yet another milestone in the system, the officials said they were preparing to present the 23 millionth passenger with 23 business-class tickets as well as high speed rail memorabilia.
The passenger volume and revenues reached 2.31 million and NT$1.903 billion last month, both setting records in a single month.
The passenger volume broke the threshold of 1 million on Jan. 22 last year; 10 million on Sept. 18 last year, and 20 million on March 7.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the greenback after the central bank and oil firms bought US dollars, dealers said.
The NT dollar dropped NT$0.011 to close at NT$30.319 on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday. A total of US$1.342 billion changed hands during the day’s trading.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
POWELL SUCCESSOR: US Fed Governor Adriana Kugler’s resignation gives Donald Trump an opening on the board, potentially accelerating his decision on the next chair US President Donald Trump suddenly has a chance to fill an opening at the US Federal Reserve earlier than expected, after Fed Governor Adriana Kugler announced her resignation on Friday. It might also force him to pick the next Fed chair months sooner than he had anticipated. “The ball is now in Trump’s court,” LH Meyer/Monetary Policy Analytics Inc economist Derek Tang said. “Trump is the one who’s been putting pressure on the Fed to do this and that, and Trump says he wants to have his own people on. So now he has the opportunity.” Kugler’s exit unfolds amid unprecedented public pressure