In light of the emerging markets’ strong performance in recent years, ING Securities Investment & Trust Co (安泰證券投資信託) yesterday launched its emerging markets umbrella fund, with three sub-funds investing in South Korea, Russia, the Middle East and Africa.
The three sub-funds are the nation’s first New Taiwan dollar-denominated onshore fund investments in those regions, the company said in a statement.
The company said it was upbeat on the South Korean market, which has made efforts to decrease its reliance on the US market while increasing exports to Asia and emerging markets.
Thus, the US economic slowdown would have a limited impact on the South Korean economy, it said.
ING said now was a good time to invest in South Korean and Thai shares, which have the lowest price-earnings ratio (PER) in Asia.
“As the US subprime crisis is expected to come to an end, ING is upbeat about South Korea’s performance in the second half of this year,” James Liu (劉益銘), chief of overseas investment at ING’s investment division, said yesterday.
ING believed shares in emerging markets, such as Russia, the Middle East and Africa, which are rich in natural resources, are good investment destinations in the face of rising international crude oil and commodity prices.
Furthermore, Russia’s recent announcement that it would lower the threshold on crude oil levies, plus the freeze on natural gas tax rate before 2010, could help lower operating costs and raise profits for industries dependent on oil.
“ING believes Russia and the Middle East will benefit from rising commodity prices, while South Korea, like Taiwan, may soon see an economic turnaround,” Steven Billiet, chief executive officer of ING Securities Investment & Trust, said yesterday.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
DOMESTIC SUPPLY: The probe comes as Donald Trump has called for the repeal of the US$52.7 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which the US Congress passed in 2022 The Office of the US Trade Representative is to hold a hearing tomorrow into older Chinese-made “legacy” semiconductors that could heap more US tariffs on chips from China that power everyday goods from cars to washing machines to telecoms equipment. The probe, which began during former US president Joe Biden’s tenure in December last year, aims to protect US and other semiconductor producers from China’s massive state-driven buildup of domestic chip supply. A 50 percent US tariff on Chinese semiconductors began on Jan. 1. Legacy chips use older manufacturing processes introduced more than a decade ago and are often far simpler than
STILL HOPEFUL: Delayed payment of NT$5.35 billion from an Indian server client sent its earnings plunging last year, but the firm expects a gradual pickup ahead Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC vendor, yesterday reported an 87 percent slump in net profit for last year, dragged by a massive overdue payment from an Indian cloud service provider. The Indian customer has delayed payment totaling NT$5.35 billion (US$162.7 million), Asustek chief financial officer Nick Wu (吳長榮) told an online earnings conference. Asustek shipped servers to India between April and June last year. The customer told Asustek that it is launching multiple fundraising projects and expected to repay the debt in the short term, Wu said. The Indian customer accounted for less than 10 percent to Asustek’s
Gasoline and diesel prices this week are to decrease NT$0.5 and NT$1 per liter respectively as international crude prices continued to fall last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to decrease to NT$29.2, NT$30.7 and NT$32.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while premium diesel is to cost NT$27.9 per liter at CPC stations and NT$27.7 at Formosa pumps, the companies said in separate statements. Global crude oil prices dropped last week after the eight OPEC+ members said they would
RSS