EQUITIES
Investors need calming: FSC
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on Wednesday said that it would encourage publicly listed companies to hold earnings presentations or conferences in an attempt to reassure investors at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic and a price war on the global oil market have caused valuations on the local bourse to tumble. The commission said that it would ask listed firms to buy back shares of their stock in light of volatility in local equities. It would consider imposing a ban on the short-selling of stocks if irrational heavy selling emerges, Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee.
ELECTRONICS
Marketech avoids closures
Marketech International Corp (帆宣), which supplies semiconductor equipment to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said that it did not need to shut down any factories due to the pandemic. The company’s clarification came after shares tumbled 9.93 percent to close at NT$61.7 amid speculation that a person whose infection was confirmed on Tuesday was linked to the company. Marketech said that its seven factories worldwide, including five local clean rooms, and all of its sales offices have been operating normally, a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.
APPAREL
Makalot profit falls 12%
Makalot Industrial Co Ltd (聚陽) yesterday reported that pretax profit last month fell 11.9 percent annually and 23.8 percent monthly to NT$160 million (US$5.31 million), as the pandemic affected its factory operations in China and reduced capacity utilization. The manufacturer of ready-to-wear apparel said that its revenue last month fell to NT$1.69 billion — the lowest in 15 months — down 18.4 percent from a year earlier and 19.1 percent from January. In the first two months of this year, Makalot said that its pretax profit fell 3.1 percent to NT$370 million, or earnings per share of NT$1.68, while combined revenue totaled NT$3.79 billion, down 10.3 percent year-on-year.
ELECTRONICS
Holy Stone profit drops 72%
Holy Stone Enterprise Co (禾伸堂), a multilayer ceramic capacitor producer, on Wednesday reported that its net income last year fell 71.52 percent year-on-year to NT$793 million, or earnings per share of NT$5.02. It blamed the decline on volatility in the passive components market last year. The company said its consolidated revenue fell 10.7 percent to NT$14.6 billion. The pandemic has not significantly affected its business, as most of its manufacturing is local, it said. Holy Stone said that its board of directors has approved a proposal to pay a cash dividend of NT$7 per common share, which represents a payout ratio of about 140 percent.
AIRLINES
Air France-KLM stops flights
Air France-KLM on Tuesday announced that flights from Paris to Taipei and Hong Kong would be stopped, while flights to other cities in Asia and Europe would be reduced. After a drop in passengers due to the coronavirus, Air France-KLM said that it has suspended services between Taipei and Paris, and between Hong Kong and Paris until March 29. Flights to Seoul would be reduced from seven to four per week, and flights to Singapore from seven to five per week, the carrier said, adding that the reduction in service would continue until April 12.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
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