BANKING
Goldman warns of Q4 loss
US banking giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Friday said that the US tax reform bill enacted this month would cut its earnings this year by about US$5 billion, mainly because of a tax targeting earnings held abroad. The tax reform package is expected to “result in a reduction of approximately US$5 billion in earnings for the fourth quarter ... approximately two-thirds of which is due to the repatriation tax,” the company said in a statement. “The one-time hit means a likely loss for the fourth quarter for the banking group. Goldman Sachs reported a net profit of US$2.4 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, while the annual total last year was US$7.4 billion.
SEMICONDUCTORS
AMD worst performer
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) finished the year dead last in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index after quadrupling last year. Falling 9.4 percent this year, AMD was one of only four companies in the 30-member semiconductor index to lose value this year. Semiconductor stocks, led by Micron Technology Inc and Nvidia Corp, were among the year’s best performers, with a 38 percent gain. Bears have increased bets against AMD, with nearly a quarter of outstanding shares being utilized by short sellers, a 52-week high, according to Markit data.
AVIATION
EgyptAir buys C Series
Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier Inc on Friday announced the sale of 12 C Series aircraft to EgyptAir in a deal worth US$1.1 billion. The company said that last month it signed a letter of intent for the sale of the 160-seat CS300 planes, with an option for another 12, which was converted into a firm purchase agreement. The deal would be worth nearly US$2.2 billion if EgyptAir buys the additional 12 planes, a statement from Bombardier Commercial Aircraft said. The order came after another for 31 aircraft from an unidentified European company early last month.
AUTOMAKERS
Court backs VW probe
The German Federal Constitutional Court has rejected a bid by Volkswagen AG (VW) for an injunction blocking the deployment of a special auditor sought by DSW, the German shareholders’ association, in its diesel emissions scandal. Last month, a court in Celle backed an independent check on events surrounding the scandal that pushed down VW shares when it erupted in 2015. Volkswagen sought an injunction blocking the new probe, but the court said in a ruling on Friday that VW had not sufficiently proven the urgency of such a decision.
CHINA
Probe recoups US$112m
Chinese authorities have recouped 730 million yuan (US$112.2 million) in misappropriated funds as part of an investigation into the national poverty-reduction scheme, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Nearly 450 people have been charged for offenses relating to the misused funds in an inspection of 28 provinces, agency said, citing the Ministry of Finance and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. The report gave no details on how the funds were misused. China has spent 196.1 billion yuan on poverty relief over the past four years, Xinhua said.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
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