Shares slip on euro concerns
The TAIEX took a hit yesterday as selling focused on market heavyweights, forcing the benchmark index down below the 7,200-point mark amid escalating fears that debt-ridden Greece would leave the eurozone, dealers said.
Although state-run funds stepped in at one point to prevent the bourse from further losses, the market kept falling in line with its regional counterparts, they said.
The TAIEX closed down 205.58 points, or 2.79 percent, at 7,151.19, after moving between 7,149.36 and 7,253.10 on turnover of NT$83.91 billion (US$2.83 billion).
At the end of the session, the machinery and electronics sector suffered the steepest decline among the eight largest sectors on the market, finishing down 3.4 percent, while the foodstuff sector closed up 0.1 percent.
Economist Kyu Eikan dies
Taiwan-born economic commentator Kyu Eikan (邱永漢) has died of heart failure at the age of 88, Japanese media reported yesterday.
Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported that only close relatives attended the funeral of the economic guru, who died two days earlier. A memorial service is to be held at a later date.
The report said that Kyu, who was born in Taiwan in 1924 to a Taiwanese father and a Japanese mother, took part in the Taiwanese independence movement after graduating from Tokyo University and later fled to Hong Kong.
He moved to Japan in 1954 with the ambition of becoming a writer and he used his experience in Hong Kong as the basis for a novel of the same name, which later won Japan’s prestigious Naoki Prize, a literary award that honors writers biennially. He obtained Japanese citizenship in 1980.
Kyu, whose business acumen in investment earned him the title of “the god of making money,” wrote more than 450 works.
Unpaid leave declines
The number of workers on unpaid leave has dropped by 73 people over the past two weeks, the Council of Labor Affairs said on Wednesday.
As of Tuesday, 24 companies had reached agreements with their employees on unpaid leave, with 2,207 workers currently on furlough, the latest statistics from the council showed.
The figure represented a decrease of workers on furlough from April 30, when 2,280 workers from 23 companies had agreed to take unpaid leave.
Software deal inked
The Institute for Information Industry on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with two Japanese groups on the development of embedded software.
Feng Ming-hui (馮明惠), director general of the Smart Network System Institute under the Taiwanese organization, signed the agreement with representatives from Fujisoft Inc and the Open Embedded Software Foundation in Tokyo, the organization said in a statement.
The three sides will develop embedded software and are expected to jointly carry out tests on the Android system early next month, it said.
NT dollar follows bourse down
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.07 to close at NT$29.630 as traders moved more funds into the greenback as a safe haven amid rising concerns over the debt problems in Greece, dealers said.
A plunge in the local bourse also placed downward pressure on the NT dollar throughout the trading session amid gloomy sentiment toward the economic fundamentals at home and abroad, they said.
Turnover totaled US$914 million during the trading session.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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