EQUITIES
TAIEX down due to festival
Local equities moved lower yesterday to close below 9,700 points, as investors grew more cautious about the spread of COVID-19 during the four-day Tomb Sweeping Day weekend that begins today. The TAIEX ended down 44.43 points, or 0.46 percent, at the day’s low of 9,663.63. Turnover totaled NT$117.37 billion (US$3.67 billion) during the session, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$4.71 billion of shares on the main board, compared with a net sell of NT$5.81 billion on Tuesday, the data showed. This week, the TAIEX fell 35.29 points, or 0.36 percent, from the closing level of 9,698.92 on Friday last week, the data showed.
ENERGY
CPC cuts LPG, LNG prices
State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday announced price cuts for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for this month. Effective today, prices of household LPG are to drop by NT$5 per kilogram, which is expected to reduce the price of a 20kg gas cylinder by NT$100, the company said. An identical reduction is also to apply to industrial-use propane, butane and propane-butane mixture, while the price of LPG used in vehicles is to fall by NT$2.7 per liter. The average price of LNG is to decline 5.03 percent from last month. The price cut translates into a decreased cost of NT$14.7 to NT$22.05 for households that use 30m3 to 45m3 of LNG per month respectively, CPC said, attributing the price cuts to a decline in international contract prices of LPG.
FINANCIAL REPORTS
Listed firms’ revenue falls
Companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange reported total revenue of NT$32.72 trillion for last year, down 0.68 percent from a year earlier, while aggregate pretax profit decreased 9.01 percent year-on-year to NT$2.38 trillion. The exchange said that 936 listed firms met Tuesday’s deadline to report their results, with the banking and insurance, cement, and computer and peripheral sectors serving as major drivers for listed firms’ profit growth last year. Meanwhile, plastics, semiconductor and optoelectronic companies were the major sectors that reported lower profits for last year, it said. The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday fined LED firm Unity Opto Technology Co (東貝光電) NT$240,000 for failing to submit its financial statement by the deadline.
MACHINERY
Quaser shares down 6.25%
Shares of Quaser Machine Tools Inc (百德機械) yesterday fell as much as 8 percent in Taipei trading after the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported that the company would cut about 40 jobs in Taiwan due to the pandemic, before closing at NT$30.75, down 6.25 percent. In a regulatory filing, Quaser confirmed the job cuts and said that its European clients have postponed some orders amid the outbreak. The company said the job cuts would have a limited effect on its operations and that it expects orders to increase after the pandemic is brought under control. Quaser reported revenue of NT$1.92 billion for last year, down 5.14 percent year-on-year, with net losses of NT$90.83 million, or net losses per share of NT$2.23. In September last year, Quaser received the Investment Commission’s approval to invest US$635 million in Winbro Group UK Ltd to tap into the world’s aviation and industrial turbine generator sectors.
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
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
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
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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