MSCI adjusts ratings
MSCI has lowered Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index from 12.07 percent to 12 percent, and in the MSCI All Country Asia ex-Japan Index from 15.79 percent to 15.75 percent.
In the MSCI All Country World Index, Taiwan’s rating was raised from 1.33 percent to 1.34 percent, according to the index compiler’s latest review.
No stocks have been removed from or added to the Taiwan index of the MSCI Global Standard Indexes and the total number of constituents has been maintained at 101.
The MSCI index adjustments are scheduled to take effect after the markets close on Aug. 29.
HannStar net profit down
HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶), which makes LCD panels for mobile devices, yesterday said its net profit declined 35 percent to NT$705 million (US$23.46 million) last quarter from NT$1.08 billion in the first quarter.
Gross margin fell to 24 percent last quarter from 30 percent in the earlier quarter and operating profit margin declined to 11 percent from 18 percent.
In the first half of this year, net profit plunged 54 percent to NT$1.78 billion from NT$3.84 billion in the same period last year.
Outlook positive: experts
Taiwan can expect an improving economic outlook over the next six months, according to the results of a world economic survey for the third quarter of the year conducted by the Germany-based Ifo Institute.
Experts interviewed about the nation’s economic development said the current overall economy, capital expenditure and private consumption stand at “satisfactory” levels, according to the survey released on Wednesday.
They predicted that Taiwan’s exports, stock market index and consumer price index would be on the rise over the next six months, the survey found.
The German institute interviewed 1,146 experts from 121 countries to compile the report on the global economic forecast.
AUO expenditure approved
AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) said on Wednesday that its board approved an increase of capital expenditure by NT$6.992 billion, as the company plans to use the money to adjust its product mix, product specification and enhance product quality.
As of the end of first quarter, the company had spent NT$5.594 billion on fixed assets on a consolidated basis, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Meanwhile, the company said it sold a plant in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南) to its LED manufacturing subsidiary, Lextar Electronics Corp (隆達電子), for NT$1.14 billion. The company said it would book a disposal gain of NT$284.8 million.
Forex hurts Synnex
Synnex Technology International Corp (聯強), Asia’s largest distributor of information technology products and electronics components, said on Tuesday that foreign exchange losses of NT$20 million caused its net profit to decline by 26 percent year-on-year to NT$1.15 billion in the second quarter, with earnings per share at NT$0.72.
In the April-June period, the firm’s consolidated sales fell 1 percent to NT$77.9 billion, and its gross margin for the second quarter fell 0.1 percentage points from a quarter earlier to 3.57 percent, while operating margin also fell to 1.41 percent from 1.34 percent on an annual basis.
Revenue in the second quarter fell 1 percent year-on-year, lower than the company’s previous guidance of an increase of between 6 and 7 percent, as China’s consumer market remained weak last quarter.
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
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
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