Following the TAIEX’s dramatic rise over the past year, investors have turned cautious about the market’s direction going forward, a survey released by Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) yesterday showed.
Only 10.2 percent of those polled expected the weighted index to hit a peak of 15,500 to 16,000 points and 7.1 percent expected it to end above 16,000 points, the survey showed.
A larger number, 40 percent, expected the TAIEX to peak above 15,000 points by the end of the first half, while 37.1 percent expected it to peak between 14,500 and 15,000 points, it showed.
Photo: CNA
The index fell 0.45 percent yesterday to close at 15,806.18.
The report surveyed 20,912 of Cathay Financial’s clients between Jan. 1 and Jan. 7, when the TAIEX climbed from 14,732 points to 15,214 points.
As a majority of Cathay’s clients are retail investors, their predictions likely reflect public confidence in the market rather than a research-based forecast about the market, a Cathay Financial official surnamed Wu (吳) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
“Given that when we conducted a similar poll in January last year, with the TAIEX at about 12,000 points at the time, only 27 percent of respondents forecast that the TAIEX would continue climbing and peak above 12,500 points, it seems that Taiwanese are more upbeat about the stock market this year,” Wu said.
Their optimism corresponds with a rise in their risk preference, with 33.3 percent of respondents willing to withdraw their fixed deposits and invest them in the stock market, up from 30.6 percent a month earlier and 25.6 percent a year earlier, Wu said.
Overall, 46.3 percent of respondents expected the TAIEX to continue rising in the next six months, followed by 16.7 percent who believed it would be flat and 23.4 percent predicting that it would decline, the survey showed.
Meanwhile, public confidence in the economy picked up, with 43.8 percent forecasting that the economy would improve in the next six months, up from 42.5 percent a month earlier, which could be attributed to the rising availability of COVID-19 vaccines, Cathay said.
However, respondents’ willingness to buy durable goods, such as vehicles or home appliances, and to make big-ticket purchases, such as travel or shopping, diverged, with the former growing from 20.7 percent a month earlier to 22.6 percent, while the latter declined from 29.5 percent to 28.5 percent, the survey showed.
Wu said it was quite curious, “as people were usually more willing to make big-ticket purchases rather than spending on durable goods during past economic recoveries.”
This might be due to rising demand for electronic goods because of the work-from-home trend or falling demand for travel because of strict border controls, Wu said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”