TAIEX passes 8,000 points
Share prices closed above 8,000 points yesterday after moving up 1.2 percent as the second round of negotiations on a cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) entered its final day.
China-concept and construction shares led the TAIEX’s rise, gaining 93.03 points to close at 8,013.09.
The bourse opened at a low of 7,952.62 and hit a high of 8,026.06 during the day’s trading. Turnover totaled NT$138.42 billion (US$4.34 billion).
Gainers outnumbered losers 2,027 to 1,071, with 325 stocks remaining unchanged.
Institutional investors were on the buy side, with foreign investors and Chinese qualified domestic institutional investors making net purchases of NT$17.11 billion in shares.
US probes Apple’s HTC lawsuit
A US trade agency said it would investigate Apple Inc’s patent-infringement claims against Taiwan’s HTC Corp (宏達電) to determine if its phones using Google Inc’s Android operating system should be banned from the US.
Apple says HTC phones infringe on 10 patents related to the implementation of the operating system. It filed the complaint last month with the US International Trade Commission (USITC) in Washington.
“By instituting this investigation, the USITC has not yet made any decision on the merits of the case,” the agency said in a statement on Wednesday.
US investigates HP complaint
The US International Trade Commission said on Wednesday it had begun an investigation into Hewlett-Packard Co’s (HP) patent-infringement claims against Taiwanese ink-cartridge maker MicroJet Technology Co (研能科技) and four other companies.
HP is seeking to block imports of HP-compatible color ink cartridges, saying they are using HP inventions without permission.
Companies that sell the MicroJet cartridges made in Taiwan were also included in the investigation.
Those companies are Mipo Technology Ltd (麥普科技) of Hong Kong and its related MexTec of Miami, SinoTime Technologies of Miami and PTC Holdings Ltd of Hong Kong, the complaint said.
HSBC Taiwan to open in May
HSBC yesterday said its locally incorporated entity — HSBC Bank (Taiwan) Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) — would begin operations on May 1 with headquarters in Taipei.
The subsidiary will enhance its local presence, supporting its growth strategies for capturing more business opportunities in Greater China and emerging markets, the bank said in a press statement.
Company president and chief executive officer Nicholas Winsor reiterated in the statement that the bank’s local incorporation would increase its direct participation in the domestic market.
Formosa favors LPG
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only publicly traded oil refiner, plans to alter its ethylene plants to enable them to use more liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) instead of naphtha.
The company will complete adjustments at the plants by the end of this year, after which lower-cost LPG would account for a maximum of 30 percent of feedstock requirements, compared with 15 percent currently, Lin Keh-yen (林克彥), a company spokesman, said by telephone yesterday.
New Taiwan dollar advances
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.031 to close at NT$31.788. Turnover was US$760 million.
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,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
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