STOCKS
TAIEX dips on electronics
Shares yesterday edged lower as major large-cap electronics stocks lost ground, but the weighted index remained above the 10,000-point mark at the close for the third consecutive session, dealers said. The TAIEX closed down 17.82 points, or 0.18 percent, at 10,013.67 points after moving between 9,967.97 and 10,029.62 on turnover of NT$82.766 billion (US$2.75 billion). The market opened down 11.87 points and slid steadily until hitting the day’s low shortly before noon. However, after the index fell below 10,000 points buying interest emerged, especially in the non-high-tech sector, vaulting the index back up by the end of the session, dealers said. Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co analyst Shawn Hsueh (薛舜日) said foreign institutional investors have been the main drivers of the market’s recent gains, moving funds in to take advantage of local companies’ high dividend yields and the relative stability of the New Taiwan dollar against foreign currencies.
INVESTMENT
Retirement goals slipping
Most Taiwanese have fallen short of meeting planned retirement goals, HSBC Bank (Taiwan) Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) said yesterday, citing a survey it conducted. Although prospective retirees have set goals to create retirement funding streams through diversified investments, most are overly reliant on cash savings, employer pension schemes and the social safety net provided by the government, while neglecting investments in stocks, bonds and foreign currencies, the survey showed. HSBC said that 27 percent of millennials have not begun preparing for retirement, compared with 19 percent of Generation Xers and 13 percent of baby boomers.
FOOD
Wei Chuan posts Q1 profit
Food maker Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品) posted net profit of NT$46.72 million for last quarter, or earnings per share of NT$0.09, ending 10 consecutive quarters of net losses. From January through March, sales grew 2.2 percent annually to NT$3.6 billion, which the company attributed to improving customer demand. However, the company still reported an operating loss of NT$126 million, improving from NT$533 million in the red in the same period last year. Wei Chuan, a major subsidiary of Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), has been the subject of a widespread boycott of its products in Taiwan, after its parent company was implicated in 2014 in a food safety scandal involving the sale of tainted cooking oil through its subsidiaries. Since then, the company has continued to invest in improving its food safety standards, despite biased opinions from Taiwan’s netizens, it said.
MATERIALS
Shin Foong stock to debut
Shin Foong Specialty and Applied Materials Co Ltd (申豐), which mainly manufactures synthetic latex, said it plans to debut on the Taiwan Stock Exchange next month. The company, a reinvestment unit of papermaking conglomerate YFY Inc (永豐餘控股), is the nation’s largest manufacturer of styrene butadiene rubber for papermaking and has paid-in capital of NT$943 million. From January through last month, Shin Foong posted cumulative revenue of NT$1.06 billion, a 5.14 percent increase from the same period last year, on the back of increasing global demand for latex gloves.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
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