Greek fears spook TAIEX
Taiwan share prices faced a mild pullback on technical factors yesterday after recent significant gains, as concerns over the debt crisis in Greece returned to haunt market sentiment, dealers said.
Selling focused on large cap high-tech stocks, with losses led by cellphone camera lensmaker Largan Precision Co (大立光) after it reported a sharp decline in its gross margin for the fourth quarter of last year, dealers said.
The weighted index closed down 48.51 points, or 0.61 percent, at 7,862.27. Turnover totaled NT$147.62 billion (US$5 billion) during the session.
TSMC bucks downtrend
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s top contract chipmaker, yesterday said revenues last month expanded 10.6 percent to NT$34.57 billion from December’s NT$31.24 billion, bucking a downtrend in the seasonally slow period.
That represented an annual decline of 2.3 percent.
TSMC chairman and CEO Morris Chang (張忠謀) forecast last month that the chipmaker’s revenues would be flattish this quarter, compared to last quarter’s NT$104.71 billion, thanks to customer’s restocking demand.
UMC revenue hits low
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s second-largest contract chipmaker, said on Thursday that its revenue dropped to a 32-month low of NT$8.05 billion last month.
UMC said rush orders from consumer electronics and computer companies helped maintain sales figures at a stable level during the traditionally slow season, despite the 0.67 percent monthly decline.
Cathay losses widen
The nation’s largest financial services provider by assets, Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), reported NT$ 1.08 billion in net losses last month, widening from losses of NT$510 million in December, dragged by its life insurance subsidiary, a stock exchange filing showed yesterday.
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) posted losses of NT$2.37 billion in January, from losses of NT$820 million from the previous month.
Hon Hai revenues up by 46%
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密), which assembles iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc, yesterday said revenues expanded 46.48 percent to NT$274.66 billion last month, compared with NT$316.94 billion in January last year.
On a monthly basis, last month’s revenues dropped 13 percent from December’s NT$316.94 billion, which was a historic high.
Ministry plans special office
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said yesterday it is planning to set up an office in March exclusively for industrial cooperation between Taiwan and Japan.
The office will handle individual applications and serve as a platform to ensure fluid inter-ministerial communication in all matters of industrial cooperation between the two nations, the MOEA’s Industrial Development Bureau said.
Regional woes hit NT dollar
The New Taiwan (NT) dollar dropped against the US dollar yesterday, down NT$0.065 to close at NT$29.560 as traders cut their positions in the local currency after taking cues from the weakness of other currencies in the region, dealers said.
The local central bank was believed to have stepped in to buy US dollars to boost the unit above the NT$29.50 level.
Turnover totaled US$1.12 billion during the trading session.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
RSS