CHINA
Manufacturing picks up
Manufacturing activity accelerated for a second straight month last month, official figures showed yesterday, although an independent indicator was less positive about the world’s second-largest economy. The expansion was mainly due to improving demand at home and overseas and a booming high-tech industry, as well as higher consumption ahead of a national holiday, National Bureau of Statistics official Zhao Qinghe (趙清河) said. The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index stood at 52.4 compared to 51.7 percent in August, but financial magazine Caixin had a lower reading of 51, down from 51.6 in August.
UNITED STATES
Case won on timeline
A former Barclays PLC trader who bragged about disrupting the western US power market more than a decade ago dodged a US$1 million fine by a regulator for alleged manipulation. Ryan Smith convinced a federal judge in Sacramento, California, that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission waited too long to bring its case against him for allegedly scheming with three Barclays traders starting in 2006 to use money-losing physical power trades at four hubs in California and the northwest to reap profits in financial positions. Smith’s victory on Friday signals that the regulator needs to pursue enforcement actions on a faster timeline.
UNITED STATES
Tax action ruled unlawful
A federal court in Texas on Friday ruled that the administration of former president Barack Obama acted unlawfully last year when its Department of the Treasury cracked down on US companies that tried to reduce their taxes by rebasing abroad, in a process known as inversion. The Chamber of Commerce and the Texas Association of Business had filed a lawsuit in Texas federal court that said a regulation from the treasury in April last year exceeded what the law allows the department to do. The US District Court for Western Texas in Austin agreed, saying the Internal Revenue Service rule was a substantive or legislative regulation that required a notice and comment period before it was instated.
ELECTRONICS
BlackBerry reports profit
BlackBerry Ltd on Thursday reported fiscal second-quarter net income of US$19 million, after reporting a loss during the same period last year. The company said it had net income of US$0.04 per basic share. On a diluted basis — assuming conversion of its convertible debentures — the loss was US$0.07 per share. Adjusted for one-time gains and costs, income was US$0.05 per share. The results beat Wall Street expectations. BlackBerry expects full-year adjusted revenue in the range of US$920 million to US$950 million.
RETAIL
Former Tesco execs in court
Three former executives of Britain’s biggest retailer Tesco PLC abused their positions of trust to encourage the manipulation of profit figures, lied to auditors and misled the stock market, prosecutors told a London court on Friday. The senior executives were “cooking the books” to support Tesco’s share price and secure huge compensation packages, and “bullied and coerced” subordinates into compliance, lead prosecutor Sasha Wass told London’s Southwark Crown Court.
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,
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
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