Shares edge up
Taiwanese shares edged up 0.12 percent yesterday as investors took their cue from Wall Street, which closed slightly higher on a new US rescue package for the financial industry, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 5.31 points at 4,271.8 on thin turnover of NT$44.97 billion (US$1.35 billion).
Advancers outnumbered losers 746 to 481, while 395 shares remained unchanged.
“Investors were pretty cautious as few have changed as to the weak fundaments here and abroad,” said Mars Hsu of Grand Cathay Securities (大華證券).
“After the two consecutive rallies on Wall Street, local investors also predicted a correction,” he said, speaking of another factor weighing down the sentiment.
Taiwan Fertilizer cuts prices
Taiwan Fertilizer Co (台肥), the nation’s largest fertilizer producer, agreed yesterday to lower fertilizer prices in keeping with the government’s wish to ease financial burdens on farmers.
The company, which provides 75 percent of the nation’s fertilizers, said it would lower urea prices from the current NT$9,100 to NT$8,450 per tonne starting next month. The company added that it would cut ammonium sulfate prices.
The former state-owned company raised prices for assorted fertilizers by an average of 40 percent on May 30 after raw material prices surged. The costs have fallen significantly since July.
Taiwan firms lend to Micron
Two units of Taiwan’s industrial conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) have agreed to lend US$285 million to Micron Technology Inc of the US, the companies said yesterday.
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), a flagship enterprise of Formosa Plastics Group, will provide Micron with a loan of US$200 million, Nan Ya said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange late on Tuesday night.
Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), a joint venture between Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) and Germany’s Qimonda AG, said in a separate filing to the stock exchange that it would lend US$85 million to Micron.
The combined sum will be used to finance Micron’s acquisition of Qimonda’s 35.6 percent stake in Inotera, a US$400 million deal struck last month.
The US firm has said it will share its Stack dynamic random access memory (DRAM) technology with Inotera for the production of Stack DRAM products for Micron and Nanya Technology.
China lowers rates again
China’s central bank lowered its interest rate yesterday — the fourth time since mid-September — to help ease the impact of the global financial crisis and aid economic growth.
The People’s Bank of China said the benchmark rates for one-year loans and deposits will both fall by 1.08 percentage points, bringing the cost of one-year borrowing to 5.58 percent and one-year deposit rates to 2.52 percent.
The central bank also slashed the reserve requirements by 1 percentage point for the six big banks, down from 17 percent, and by 2 percentage points for smaller banks, down from 16 percent.
The move was more aggressive than predicted by analysts and comes a day after the World Bank predicted reduced economic growth for China next year.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.046 to close at NT$33.306.
A total of US$997 million changed hands during the day’s trading.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
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