TAIEX recoups earlier losses
Taiwanese shares closed 0.56 percent higher yesterday as bargain hunting helped to recoup earlier losses on Wall Street’s declines overnight, dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 48.37 points at 8,627.80, off a low of 8,562.13 and a high of 8,635.94, on turnover of NT$85.48 billion (US$2.81 billion), which shrank from Tuesday’s US$98.37 billion.
However, many investors remained sidelined, keeping daily trading volume thin, amid fears that possible turbulence in the US credit market will further impact the country’s economy, they said.
Gainers outnumbered decliners 1,251 to 1,001, with 433 stocks unchanged.
Winbond secures hefty loan
Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子), the nation’s most unprofitable computer-memory maker, said it secured a NT$7.7 billion syndicated loan to fund capacity expansion.
The five-year loan was signed with 11 Taiwanese banks, the Hsinchu-based chipmaker said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Winbond, which posted a loss of NT$5.8 billion last year, said on March 14 it would spin-off its non-memory business on July 1. The company had NT$10.9 billion in cash at the end of March, more than NT$4 billion less than three months earlier, Bloomberg data showed.
Gou signs letter of intent
Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) signed a letter of intent with Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) at a software park in Kaohsiung yesterday, his first step in a high-profile plan to invest in the largest city in southern Taiwan.
At the signing ceremony, Gou said that the investment in the Kaohsiung Software Park would center on the cultivation and upgrading in terms of innovation, research, development and design.
In the early stage of the project, 3,000 jobs for software engineers are planned for within the next five years, with 520 software engineers to be hired before May 20 next year — the planned deadline for the first stage of the project, Gou said.
CPC posts millions in losses
CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) lost NT$10.1 billion last month and reported a loss of NT$43.2 billion in the first five months of the year, a company official said yesterday.
The company expects pretax losses grow to NT$82.2 billion this year if retail fuel prices continue to remain at the current levels, CPC vice president Chu Shao-hua (朱少華) said by telephone.
The government-controlled refiner had an NT$11.83 billion net profit and a NT$14.66 billion pretax profit last year.
CPC raised its prices of fuel oil and liquefied petroleum gas last week to reflect rising international crude oil costs. But its hikes covered only 50 percent of the increase needed to cover the rise in costs, and only 54 percent on the needed increase in natural gas prices.
Cathay Life to sell shares
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation’s biggest life insurer, intends to raise NT$15 billion selling shares to its parent company to help replenish working capital.
The company will sell 200 million new shares for NT$75 each to Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing showed on Tuesday, without elaborating.
NT drops against greenback
The NT dollar dropped against its US counterpart on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.06 to close at NT$30.350.
A total of US$1.117 billion changed hands during the day’s trading.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) forecast that its wafer shipments this quarter would grow up to 7 percent sequentially and the factory utilization rate would rise to 75 percent, indicating that customers did not alter their ordering behavior due to the US President Donald Trump’s capricious US tariff policies. However, the uncertainty about US tariffs has weighed on the chipmaker’s business visibility for the second half of this year, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said at an online earnings conference yesterday. “Although the escalating trade tensions and global tariff policies have increased uncertainty in the semiconductor industry, we have not
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS