Shares fall slightly
Taiwanese shares closed little changed yesterday amid ongoing probes into money-laundering allegations implicating former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his family, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 6.84 points, or 0.10 percent, to 6,911.64, off a low of 6,837.25 and a high of 6,994.80 on turnover of NT$78.93 billion (US$2.51 billion).
The market opened higher on a technical rebound but profit-taking followed to erode gains as investors remained wary of investigations into the money-laundering allegations, dealers said.
Moreover, higher crude oil prices had renewed fears of inflation, they said.
“As the market moved higher, investors tended to pocket their money.
Yesterday’s movements clearly demonstrated weak investor confidence,” Taiwan International Securities (金鼎證券) analyst Arch Shih (施博元) said.
Shih said the relatively low turnover also reflected poor market sentiment.
However, he said the bright side was that the market seemed to have short-term technical support at around 6,800 points.
“The market has entered a consolidation mode. Without trading volume expanding, it is hard for the bourse to get out of the current narrow range,” he said.
HannStar in share buyback
Local liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel maker HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) yesterday said it planned to spend as much as NT$2.32 billion to buy back 255 million common shares to boost return on equity for shareholders.
HannStar said it planned to buy the shares, about 5 percent of the company’s total outstanding stock, for between NT$7 and NT$13.03 for a two-month period ending Oct. 24, according to a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The firm plans to cancel the shares repurchased. Its board approved the share buyback plan yesterday.
Uni-President loses millions
Uni-President Enterprises Corp’s (統一企業) China-listed holding company has suffered 128 million yuan (US$18.73 million) in exchange losses in the first half of this year, a report said yesterday.
The firm’s first-half earnings declined by 18.4 percent from a year ago to 212 million yuan, the Chinese-language Commercial Times newspaper reported yesterday.
The company said it failed to fully convert 4 billion yuan raised from its initial public offerings late last year.
The subsidiary, 73.5 percent owned by the parent, posted 13.1 percent year-on-year growth to 5,037 billion yuan in the first half of the year, the report said.
After-tax profits registered 212 million yuan, an 18.4 percent year-on-year decline, the report said.
Chi Mei donates building
The Chi Mei Group (奇美集團) — the world’s fourth-largest manufacturer of liquid-crystal-display panels in terms of revenue — will donate a NT$440 million (US$14 million) building to National Chiao Tung University’s Tainan campus, an executive of the group announced yesterday.
Frank Liao (廖錦祥), chairman of Chi Mei Corp and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美光電) — two subsidiaries of the Chi Mei Group — said the building is scheduled to be completed by the end of next August in time for the beginning of the fall semester.
The facility will house Taiwan’s first College of Optoelectronics, which will cultivate talent for the electro-optical industry, Liao said.
NT dollar strengthens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday firmed by NT$0.019 to trade at NT$31.370 against the greenback on turnover of US$840 million.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS