Eurozone debt caps TAIEX gains
Gains on the nation’s main bourse were capped yesterday ahead of the nearest technical resistance around 7,100 points as lingering concerns over the debt crisis in the eurozone continued weighing on market sentiment, dealers said.
Select large-cap stocks, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) and Mega Financial Holdings Co (兆豐金控), attracted interest for bargains to fend off profit-taking pressure after the weighted index moved higher, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 16.75 points, or 0.24 percent, at 7,088.83, on turnover of NT$50.90 billion (US$1.70 billion).
Among the winning market heavyweights, TSMC rose 0.76 percent to close at NT$80.00, HTC gained 1.45 percent to end at NT$350.00, while Mega Financial Holdings closed up 2.12 percent at NT$21.65.
Solar energy shares move up
Local solar energy shares moved sharply higher yesterday morning after shares of US-based First Solar Inc soared 21 percent on Wall Street overnight on unexpected demand in Europe, dealers said.
However, investors were advised that they trade these renewable energy stocks with caution, as there are few signs that oversupply in the global solar energy sector would be reversed any time soon, dealers said.
At the end of Taipei trading, shares of Gintech Energy Corp (昱晶) added 7 percent, the maximum daily increase, to NT$38.50, shares of Neo Solar Power Corp (新日光) gained 4.29 percent to NT$21.9 and shares of Solartech Energy Corp (昇陽) rose 2.98 percent to NT$32.8.
ASE spoksperson steps down
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s largest chip packaging and testing company, said in an exchange filing that Allen Kan (甘智文) relinquished his role as deputy spokesman because of an investigation by local prosecutors.
Kan, who is also a finance director, has not left the company, while it was not immediately clear if he would keep the finance role, Grace Teng (鄧述恩), an investor relations representative, said by telephone yesterday. Chief financial officer Joseph Tung (董宏思), who is also deputy spokesman, will continue in both roles, while president Richard Chang (張洪本) will remain spokesman for the company, Teng said.
Prosecutors are investigating some ASE employees for possible insider trading related to its 2009 acquisition of Universal Scientific Industrial Co (環隆電氣), the company said in a filing on Saturday. Kan was not immediately available for comment, Teng said.
Water to naptha cracker intact
The Water Resources Agency yesterday denied media reports that said Formosa Plastics Group’s (台塑集團) sixth naphtha cracker in Yunlin County would face a water shortage after a dam was damaged by torrential rains this week.
Agency spokeswoman Tyan Chau-ling (田巧玲) said part of the dike surrounding a dam in Nantou County’s Jiji Township (集集) that supplies water to the naphtha cracker was washed away by the heavy rain a day earlier.
However, she assured that there would be no problem in the facility’s water supply because the agency has activated the backup supply system. Formosa Plastics also denied media reports that the damage at the dam would shut off water supply and impact the group’s operations, saying the backup system is functioning normally and water supply is sufficient.
NT dollar closes up
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, edging up NT$0.011 to close at NT$29.980.
Turnover totaled US$863 million during the trading session.
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
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
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