European plan boosts TAIEX
The TAIEX continued to gain momentum yesterday as financial heavyweights regained their footing on improved sentiment after Germany approved a plan to expand the European bailout fund, dealers said.
As Germany is the largest creditor to the debt-ridden countries in the eurozone, the market expects other creditor countries to follow suit and ratify the bailout fund expansion plan to resolve the debt crisis in the eurozone, dealers said.
As a result, investors turned upbeat about local financial firms, which are vulnerable to European debt, as concerns over the impact of the debt problems have reduced their bottom lines.
The index closed up 42.77 points, or 0.60 percent, at 7,225.38, after moving between 7,163.75 and 7,251.87 on turnover of NT$90.96 billion (US$2.97 billion).
Government buys back debt
The government bought back two out of four tranches of Treasury bills yesterday, the central bank said in a conference call.
The government bought back NT$30 billion of 364-day securities maturing in April next year at 0.8 percent and NT$29.5 billion of 273-day notes maturing in May next year at 0.8 percent, the bank said.
The government failed to buy back NT$17.6 billion of 273-day bills maturing on Dec. 28 and NT$35 billion of 91-day debt maturing on Dec. 9, the bank said.
Portfolios to be expanded
Securities houses are to be allowed to buy and sell overseas exchangeable corporate bonds, offshore structured products and overseas corporate bonds with warrants, the Financial Supervisory Commission said in a statement yesterday.
Hua Nan inks cross-strait pact
Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行), the banking arm of Hua Nan Financial Holdings Co (華南金控), signed a business cooperation agreement with China Merchants Bank (中國招商銀行) yesterday, Hua Nan Financial said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
HTC unveils new smartphone
Smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) unveiled an entry-level smartphone in India yesterday as its latest addition to its product portfolio in emerging markets.
With a 3.2-inch touchscreen and a 300-megapixel camera, the HTC Explorer is aimed at first-time smartphone customers and offers easy access to a variety of Web sites, the company said in a statement.
HTC said the Android-powered phone would be “affordable,” but declined to give a specific price.
The product will be available across key markets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia in the fourth quarter.
Companies raising paychecks
A total of 17 percent of private enterprises raised their employees’ monthly salaries as of July, a government official said on Thursday.
The average increase for about 30 percent of all workers stood at 3 percent, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Minister Shih Su-mei (石素梅) said in a question-and-answer session at the legislature.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) said the number hinted that up to 83 percent of the private businesses have not raised salaries for their employees and she hoped the government would keep track of the numbers.
“Some companies will adjust [salaries] later on,” while others are giving extra bonuses instead of raising monthly pay, Shih said.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US currency yesterday, declining NT$0.066 to close at NT$30.506.
Turnover totaled US$1.255 billion during the trading session.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
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