TAIEX rebounds 2.39 percent
The TAIEX rebounded 2.39 percent yesterday, edging toward a two-week closing high. The rebound was fueled by a surge on Wall Street and in European markets on Friday amid signs that global markets are stabilizing.
The TAIEX rallied 182.37 points to close at 7,819.39, after moving between 7,775.82 and 7,748.46 on turnover of NT$92.438 billion (US$3.19 billion).
A total of 3,179 stocks closed up and 1,240 were down, with 423 remaining unchanged.
In the broader market, all sectors closed up, of which the foodstuffs sector scored the highest gains, finishing up 4 percent.
Office workers fond of gadgets
A total of 65.5 percent of the nation’s office workers have a smartphone or a tablet computer, according to the results of a recent online poll.
The 1111 Job Bank survey, conducted between July 26 and Aug. 8, found that smartphones are the most popular device owned by local office workers.
Other popular high-end products among office workers were tablet computers, such as Apple Inc’s iPad.
The survey also found that on average, every 1.08 office workers owns one of these devices.
Collecting 1,160 effective samples by e-mail, the survey had a confidence level of 95 percent and a sampling error of plus or minus 2.88 percentage points.
SMIC’s Simon Yang resigns
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), China’s biggest chipmaker, said the company’s chief operating officer Simon Yang (楊士寧) resigned, according to a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday.
Yang’s resignation will take effect on Sept. 5 and SMIC will arrange to appoint his replacement “as soon as practicable,” the -company said in a statement, without saying why he resigned.
On Aug. 5, SMIC appointed Chiu Tzu-yin (邱慈雲) as CEO and executive director of the company after David Wang (王寧國) resigned from the post last month.
SMIC last month also named Zhang Wenyi (張文義) its new chairman, after his predecessor Jiang Shangzhou (江上舟) died in June.
Firms team to tap China market
Hollywood studio Relativity Media said it is partnering with two companies to make Chinese films for global audiences and distribute movies in the fast growing Chinese market.
The partnership teams Relativity with private equity firm SAIF Partners and IDG China Media, an investment arm of Boston-based International Data Group.
Relativity will also distribute future films in China through a joint venture called SkyLand, in which the three companies are co-owners. SkyLand will also invest in local film and TV production.
Bright Food announces deal
China’s Bright Food Group (光明食品) said yesterday it had agreed to buy a 75 percent stake in Australia’s Manassen Foods, as it seeks to become a major global industry player.
Bright Food did not disclose how much it would pay for the controlling stake in Manassen Foods, but called the deal mutually beneficial.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Bright Food would buy about a 75 percent stake of Manassen Foods from Champ Private Equity, valuing the entire food firm at more than US$520 million.
NT dollar up against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.057 to close at NT$28.952.
Turnover totaled US$559 million during the trading session.
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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