REAL ESTATE
US home prices climb 5.5%
US home prices rose in November, rising more than 5 percent from a year ago in the biggest increase since August 2006, when the housing market started to collapse. However, data on consumer confidence released on Tuesday was less encouraging, with moods falling to their lowest level in more than a year as Americans became more pessimistic about the economic outlook and their financial prospects in the wake of higher taxes. In a fresh sign the housing sector is on the mend, the S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 0.6 percent in November on a seasonally adjusted basis, in line with economists’ forecasts. Prices in the 20 cities rose 5.5 percent year-on-year, making for the strongest yearly price increase in more than six years when prices were on their way down.
ENERGY
Judge accepts BP’s plea
A US judge accepted an agreement by BP PLC to plead guilty for its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster and pay a record US$4 billion in criminal penalties for the worst offshore oil spill in US history. The company pleaded guilty to 11 felony counts related to workers’ deaths, a felony related to obstruction of Congress and two misdemeanors. It faces five years’ probation and the imposition of two monitors who will oversee its safety and ethics for the next four years. Even after settling federal criminal charges, the company faces civil penalties of up to US$21 billion and separate state claims due to be heard at a trial starting in New Orleans on Feb. 25.
ELECTRONICS
LG posts loss on EU fines
LG Electronics Inc, the world’s second-largest TV maker, unexpectedly reported a wider fourth-quarter loss because of EU price-fixing fines, slumping demand and a stronger won. The net loss was 468 billion won (US$432 million), compared with a 112 billion won loss a year earlier, Seoul-based LG said in a statement yesterday. The company was expected to make a profit of 88.8 billion won, based on the average of 21 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales were 13.5 trillion won. LG, which gets about half of its sales from TVs, was fined 491.6 million euros (US$660 million) by EU antitrust regulators last month after an industrywide probe of cathode-ray tube sales. LG made an operating profit of 107.2 billion won compared 85.6 billion won. The TV maker earns about 80 percent of its revenue overseas.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Hynix beats profit forecast
SK Hynix Inc, the world’s second-largest maker of computer chips, reported a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit on strong mobile device chip sales. Net income was 163.7 billion won, compared with a loss of 239.9 billion won a year earlier, the Icheon, South Korea-based chipmaker said in a filing yesterday. The company was expected to make a profit of 120.2 billion won, based on the average of 31 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales rose 6.5 percent to 2.72 trillion won. Increased production of chips for Apple Inc iPhones and other mobile devices helped Hynix offset waning demand for DRAM chips. The chipmaker is also gaining from growing demand from Chinese electronics companies, which buy more than half of its mobile chips, according to Hwang Min Seong, a Hong Kong-based Samsung Securities Co analyst.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
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