TAIEX down on US data
Share prices closed down 0.40 percent yesterday in thin trading after investors took their cues from a Wall Street fall overnight on disappointing US existing home sales data, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 30.53 points to 7,582.15, after fluctuating between 7,549.98 and 7,615.44, on turnover of NT$77.26 billion (US$2.41 billion).
The market opened 0.48 percent lower amid renewed worries over the pace of the global economic recovery, and pressure persisted throughout the trading session ahead of the nearest technical resistance at around the 7,600-point mark, according to the dealers.
A total of 1,729 stocks closed down and 1,166 were up, with 335 stocks remaining unchanged.
Citigroup to issue bonds
Citigroup Inc plans to raise US$330 billion via the issuance of three-year Formosa bonds, the nation’s first onshore US dollar-denominated bond by a foreign issuer from the local market, the bank said in a press statement yesterday.
The bond issue, priced with a coupon of 2.8 percent, will be listed on the GRETAI Securities Market and arranged by Citigroup Global Markets Inc, it said, adding that the proceeds would be for general corporate use.
Sales of the bond, offered and sold only in Taiwan, are expected to start next Tuesday and be settled on July 16. The bond is a maiden issue under the US bank’s shelf registration with a ceiling amount of US$1 billion in Taiwan, which has been approved by the financial regulator.
TECO Electric inks Japan deal
Taiwan-based TECO Electric & Machinery Co (東元電機) inked a cooperation contract with Japan’s SIM-Drive Corp yesterday under which TECO will produce high-horsepower electric in-wheel motors using technology supplied by the electric vehicle developer.
Production will begin next year, with capacity expected to reach 100,000 units by 2013, TECO said.
TECO chairman Liu Chao-kai (劉兆凱) said in-wheel motors are designed to be incorporated into the hub of a wheel, driving it directly.
He said in-wheel motors are likely to become a trend because of their flexibility and energy-saving features.
He said the market for in-wheel motors for electric vehicles is estimated to be around NT$7 billion (US$218.5 million) per year, and that his company and SIM-Drive are targeting electric vehicle manufacturers in China and Japan as potential buyers.
South Korea to limit loans
South Korea will bar banks from giving foreign-currency loans to local companies for domestic use starting on July 1 as part of measures announced this month to reduce volatility in capital flows and the won.
“The restriction to limit foreign-currency loans to overseas use will help reduce external debt,” the Bank of Korea said in an e-mailed statement in Seoul yesterday. “It will also protect local firms from the risk of big swings in foreign- exchange rates.”
South Korea joins nations from Taiwan to Russia in tightening rules on capital flows to limit swings in their currencies.
The G20 meeting in Busan, South Korea, earlier this month urged regulators to develop capital rules to enable financial firms to withstand future downturns in the global financial system.
NT dollar down NT$0.095
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.095 to close at the day’s low of NT$32.189. Turnover totaled US$818 million during the trading session.
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
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS