TAIEX flirts with 7,500 points
The TAIEX ended higher yesterday as buying rotated to select large-cap high-tech stocks, but gains were limited by strong technical resistance ahead of the 7,500-point mark, dealers said.
The foodstuffs sector also attracted interest amid rising international food prices because of an ongoing drought in North America, while the financial sector suffered losses as investors pocketed the gains they had built up in recent sessions, dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 42.95 points, or 0.58 percent, at 7,479.25, after moving between 7,447.03 and 7,520.65, on turnover of NT$80.21 billion (US$2.68 billion).
Arima shares fall on jobs news
Shares of Arima Communications Corp (華冠通訊) fell yesterday after Motorola Mobility announced plans to cut 20 percent of its workforce, stirring up fears that the smartphone vendor would cut orders to the Taiwanese maker, dealers said.
Local media reported that because of Motorola Mobility’s plan to downsize, Arima is likely to lose orders for four of the US vendor’s smartphone models in the second half of this year.
Arima ended down 1.53 percent at NT$12.85.
In the first quarter of this year, Arima posted a net loss of NT$57.91 million, or a loss per share of NT$0.14. Analysts expected Arima to suffer a loss per share of between NT$0.7 and NT$0.8 for the whole of this year after taking into account Motorola Mobility’s downsizing plan.
Bank of Taiwan enters Shanghai
The state-owned Bank of Taiwan (台銀) yesterday opened a branch in Shanghai to serve Taiwanese businesspeople in the fast-growing city, the lender said in a statement.
The lender, the banking arm of Taiwan Financial Holding Co (台灣金控), is widely expected to provide New Taiwan dollar settlement services once China and Taiwan work out a currency settlement mechanism.
TAITRA hosts sporting seminar
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) said yesterday that it would sponsor a seminar on Tuesday next week to help Taiwanese businesses tap into commercial opportunities created by two major sporting events in Brazil in the next four years.
Brazil will host the World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, making it the first country in South America to sponsor the Olympics and the fourth country to win the right to host the two major sports extravaganzas consecutively.
According to Brazil’s Ministry of Sports, the government will spend about US$20 billion to stage the World Cup. The money will be invested in match venues, transportation infrastructure, airports and harbors, ICT software and hardware and safety monitoring systems.
The country will spend an additional US$14.4 billion to host the Summer Games.
TSMC to go on buying spree
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s top contract chipmaker, yesterday said the company’s board had approved a capital appropriation plan to spend NT$71.75 billion to expand and upgrade its advanced technology capacity and another NT$11.29 billion to expand an existing factory building and install new systems.
In July, TSMC said it would retain its full-year capital spending at a record US$8.5 billion, mostly to ramp up production of 28nm chips, with part of the investment to be spent on developing 20nm chips.
NT dollar builds momentum
The NT dollar gained ground against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.04 to close at NT$29.965.
Turnover totaled US$517 million during the trading session.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
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