LAND AUCTIONS
MOF has successful auction
The Ministry of Finance (MOF) yesterday auctioned the superficies rights to six plots of state-owned land — of 11 plots on offer — for NT$439.27 million (US$14.6 million). The sale represents a premium of NT$21.57 million from a floor price of NT$417.7 million proposed by the ministry. The ministry yesterday auctioned 15 land development projects in the second of three rounds of bidding planned for this year, with winning bidders able to develop the land through the granting of 50-year superficies rights. The six plots sold included a development project in Keelung, which was sold for NT$13.01 million, the first such successful sale in the city, the ministry’s National Property Administration said in a statement.
PROPERTY
Tax fears hit market
The local property sector was hammered yesterday by fears that the government will introduce taxes to curb speculation, a move that could limit housing transactions and squeeze profits for developers, dealers said. The greatest concern is that the government will impose a “home purchase tax” on buyers who already own three or more homes, dealers said. According to the Ministry of Finance, the number of people in Taiwan who own three or more homes is more than 660,000. On the local bourse, the property sub-index closed down 3.61 percent at 321.35 points, while the TAIEX closed down 0.85 percent at 7,832.65.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
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
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
INDUSTRY LEADER: INDUSTRY LEADER: 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
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