TAIEX hits 31-month high
Taiwan’s benchmark index closed higher yesterday, hitting a 31-month high, amid active rotational buying in a market awash in liquidity, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed up 38.38 points, or 0.43 percent, at 8,898.87, the highest level since May 22, 2008, after moving between 8,874.87 and 8,914.34, on turnover of NT$133.62 billion (US$4.47 billion).
“The gains were basically liquidity driven,” Concord Securities (康和證券) analyst Allen Lin said. “With ample funds on hand, investors tended to park their money in those stocks that have a rosy earnings outlook.”
HTC names new CFO
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone brand, named Winston Yung (容覺生) as its new chief financial officer, replacing H.M. Cheng (鄭慧明), according to a company statement released on Wednesday night.
Prior to joining HTC, Yung was the CFO for Shin Kong Financial Holding (新光金控) and had held key positions at McKinsey & Co in Hong Kong. Yung received a bachelor of social sciences with an economics major from the University of Hong Kong and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Cheng is retiring from HTC and will move into an advisory role for HTC’s board of directors.
Cathay reports purchase
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) bought real estate in Taipei for NT$685 million, parent Cathay Financial Holdings Co (國泰金控) said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Chinatrust approves MOU plan
Chinatrust Commercial Bank’s (中國信託商銀) board approved a plan to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Bank of China Ltd (中國銀行) on cooperation, the Taipei-based lender said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
The deal requires both Taiwanese and Chinese regulatory approval, according to the statement.
Epistar board approves sale
Epistar Corp’s (晶元光電) board approved a plan to sell up to US$280 million of zero-interest five-year overseas convertible bonds, the Hsinchu-based company said in an exchange statement yesterday.
The proceeds will be used to pay US dollar debts and buy factory equipment, according to the statement.
E-Ton Solar to sell bonds
Local solar cell maker E-Ton Solar Tech Co (益通光能) plans to sell up to NT$6 billion of convertible bonds, the company said in a statement yesterday.
It also plans to sell as many as 300 million shares to help repay debt and fund the purchase of equipment and raw material, the Tainan-based company said.
NT dollar up against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar rose before a report yesterday showed that industrial production climbed for a 15th month. It trimmed gains in the last minutes of trading on suspected intervention by the central bank.
The monetary authority bought the US dollar, according to two traders who declined to be identified as policymakers don’t usually disclose such details. Industrial production rose 19.4 percent last month from a year earlier, higher than the 12.5 percent economists estimated in a Bloomberg survey.
“The economy is doing well and that supports the [New] Taiwan dollar,” said Tarsicio Tong (湯健揚), a Taipei-based currency trader at Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行). “Volumes are thin these days,” he said.
The NT dollar appreciated 0.4 percent to close at NT$30.485 against its US counterpart yesterday, according to Taipei Forex Inc.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
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