SinoPac deal boosts TAIEX
The TAIEX closed higher yesterday after the financial sector regained momentum on the back of news that Taiwan-based SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) has agreed to sell a stake in its banking unit to China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, 中國工商銀行), dealers said.
However, the upside on the broader market was limited, as the high-tech sector appeared lackluster and select old economy stocks, in particular petrochemical firms, suffered downward pressure, they said.
The weighted index closed up 29.17 points, or 0.37 percent, at 7,942.35 on turnover of NT$68.02 billion (US$2.27 billion).
United postpones Taipei flights
United Airlines has postponed its planned resumption of flights between San Francisco and Taipei to March 31 next year.
In a recent announcement, the US air carrier said the postponement was caused by a shortage of planes due to the grounding of all Boeing 787 aircraft in operation around the world. United Airlines currently has six of the planes.
Weaker euro dents reserves
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves amounted to US$401.89 billion as of the end of last month, a decrease of US$2.19 billion from February, the central bank said yesterday.
The euro and other major currencies depreciated against the US dollar last month, making a decrease in foreign exchange reserves greater than the returns from management of the reserves, the central bank said in a statement.
The outflow from foreign-held portfolios totaled NT$70 million last month, also dragging down the nation’s foreign exchange reserves, the bank said.
Central bank auctions bonds
The central bank yesterday sold NT$40 billion of five-year bonds at a yield of 1.017 percent in an auction, with the yield rate for five-year bonds rising for the third straight time.
The sale attracted bids for 1.85 times the number of bonds on offer, higher than the 1.79 times when the bank last sold five-year bonds on Jan. 15, the central bank said.
The banking sector accounted for 64.75 percent of the winning bids, followed by the securities sector with 31 percent and the bills finance sector with 4.25 percent, data from the sale showed.
Separately, the central bank sold NT$100 billion of 364-day negotiable certificates of deposit in an auction with an average interest rate of 0.691 percent, down from the 0.72 percent recorded in the previous sale, with the sale attracting bids for 3.03 times the number of bills on offer.
HTC unveils new smartphone
Smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday unveiled its new entry-level smartphone model, the Desire Q, targeting a younger generation of smartphone users, who are heavy users of smartphones for playing music and taking pictures.
Equipped with a 1GHz processor and a 5 megapixel rear camera, the Desire Q is a 4-inch Android-powered smartphone customized exclusively for Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) subscribers.
The phone is priced at NT$6,900 (US$231.19), but consumers may own the phone at zero cost by paying a minimum monthly subscription fee of NT$1,173 (US$39.29) in a two-year contract.
Earlier this week, HTC unveiled the Desire P, a mid-level smartphone which has a NT$10,900 price tag.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan lost ground against its US counterpart yesterday, declining NT$0.005 to close at NT$29.925.
Trading volume totaled US$606 million during the session.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
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