ENTERTAINMENT
Broadway tops gross record
New York City’s Broadway ended last year with a bang — a big New Year’s Eve holiday capping off the highest-grossing calendar year in history. According to the Broadway League, the total gross was US$1.362 billion, with total attendance of 13.13 million for the year that just ended. The total take was a 14 percent uptick over 2013 — boosted by premium pricing — making last year the highest-grossing calendar year on Broadway. There also was a 13 percent increase in attendance over 2013. A hugely profitable Christmas week led to the highest-grossing new year’s holiday week, with The Elephant Man, It’s Only a Play, The Book of Mormon, Aladdin and The Lion King all breaking theater records.
INVESTMENT
Morgan Stanley fires ‘thief’
US investment bank Morgan Stanley on Monday said that it had fired an employee for stealing the personal data of hundreds of thousands of wealth management customers. Some account information for about 900 of the clients, including account numbers and names, was briefly posted on the Internet and, once detected, was “promptly removed,” the bank said in a statement. No passwords or US social security numbers were stolen, the company said, adding: “There is no evidence of any economic loss to any client.” Morgan Stanley did not identify the alleged thief, but said the person worked in its wealth management business, without providing further details.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
JPMorgan settles lawsuit
JPMorgan Chase & Co has reached a settlement with accusers who alleged in a lawsuit that it had manipulated foreign exchange rates to its advantage, a well-placed source said on Monday in New York. The bank was one of 12 named in the class-action suit filed in March last year alleging that its staff conspired to manipulate rates in the multitrillion US dollar foreign exchange market in ways that cheated customers while boosting bank earnings. JPMorgan was not expected to divulge the financial terms of the deal with the plaintiffs, who include large investment funds, urban governments and employee pension plans, the source said, adding that the settlement payout was less than US$1 billion.
AUTOMAKERS
Volvo finishes Dongfeng deal
Swedish truck maker Volvo Group on Monday said that it had completed the acquisition of 45 percent of a subsidiary to Chinese motor giant Dongfeng Motor Group (東風) for US$893 million. Announced in January 2013 and now confirmed by Beijing, the deal awards Volvo a share in Dongfeng Commercial Vehicles worth 5.5 billion yuan (US$886 million). The other 55 percent remains in the hands of the parent company Dongfeng, one of the main shareholders of the French carmaker PSA.
UNITED STATES
Chinese pet treats recalled
Petco on Monday said that it has removed all remaining Chinese-made dog and cat treats from its Web site and stores across the US amid concerns that they have sickened thousands of pets and killed 1,000 dogs in the nation since 2007. The US Food and Drug Administration said that initial tests have not connected the Chinese jerky and rawhide treats to the illnesses, but the San Diego-based company and rival PetSmart vowed in May last year to ban the snacks. Petco, which has 1,300 stores, is the first US pet retailer to pull the treats. Phoenix-based PetSmart Inc said on Monday that it plans to have them off shelves by March.
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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