Eurozone fears impact TAIEX
The stock market retreated yesterday as a downgrade of Spain’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s raised concerns about the debt crisis in Europe, dealers said.
Financial shares encountered heavy selling by foreign institutional investors after JPMorgan Chase’s disappointing third-quarter results announcement heightened fears that banks’ exposure to eurozone debts would impact on the sector’s bottom line, the dealers said.
The TAIEX closed down 70.25 points, or 0.95 percent, at 7,358.08, after moving between 7,353.80 and 7,430.50, on turnover of NT$84.41 billion (US$2.79 billion).
Epistar to cancel repo bonds
Epistar Corp (晶電), the nation’s largest LED chipmaker, has repurchased and will cancel US$6.8 million of zero-coupon convertible bonds from the open market, according to a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Bonds seen to go for 1.05%
A government auction of NT$40 billion in five-year bonds is expected to go for 1.05 percent on Monday, according to a median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg News survey.
A poll of five finance firms showed the highest forecast was 1.07 percent and the lowest 1.03 percent. That compares with the 1.044 percent yield on similar maturity notes in the secondary market at the close yesterday, according to GRETAI Securities Market.
Investors will bid on the yield at the auction. The issuer will set the security’s coupon by taking the highest winning yield.
Q4 notebook shipments to drop
Taiwan-based notebook makers’ combined shipments in the fourth quarter are expected to fall slightly amid a shrinking global market, a Taipei-based research firm said on Thursday.
Digitimes Research forecast that shipments would drop 1.3 percent to 44.6 million units from the previous quarter. However, the decrease would be smaller than a forecast 4.8 percent global decline, it said.
Both declines will be due mainly to the unstable global economy and the impact of tablet computers, Digitimes Research senior analyst Joanne Chien (簡佩萍) said.
In addition, although the first “ultrabooks” will hit the market in the fourth quarter, the prices — which she described as high — will not provide a major boost, she said.
Window-cleaner enters market
A window-cleaning robot that won a gold medal at the 2010 iENA Nuremberg International Trade Fair was launched in Taiwan on Thursday, the distributor said.
The robot, named Winbot, was invented by Taiwanese Chao Chih-mo (趙志謀) and uses magnets that allow it to be attached to both sides of windows up to 10mm thick to clean both surfaces at the same time, K.E. & Kingstone Co (嘉儀企業) said.
The robot is able to detect the area in need of cleaning on its own using automatic navigation technology and infrared sensors, the company said.
Banks ink agreement
Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) signed a cooperation agreement with Bank of China (中國銀行), the Taipei-based lender’s parent Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
Cathay United signed similar agreements with Agricultural Bank of China (中國農業銀行) and Bank of Communications (交通銀行) earlier this year.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar continued gaining ground against its US counterpart yesterday, adding NT$0.029 to close at NT$30.300 on turnover of US$738 million.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
The US said it plans to help build a first-of-its-kind industrial hub in the Philippines to boost production of inputs crucial to US supply chains. The 4,000-acre hub is intended to be “a purpose-built platform for allied manufacturing” and “an investment acceleration hub where the specific industrial activities are shaped by market demand,” the US Department of State said on Thursday. The project — touted as an “economic security zone” — would be within the Luzon Economic Corridor, a flagship economic project backed by the US and Japan on the main Philippine island. The project was also described as “the first artificial intelligence
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