EQUITIES
TAIEX closes slightly higher
The TAIEX closed slightly higher yesterday as investors locked in gains ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. As the bellwether electronics sector took a pause after a strong showing in the past two trading sessions, buying rotated to select old economy and financial stocks, preventing the broader market from falling into negative territory by the end of the session, dealers said. The benchmark index closed up 11.27 points, or 0.07 percent, at 15,771.32, on turnover of NT$275.782 billion (US$9.72 billion). Tomorrow is the final day of trading for the local equity market before the holiday. Yesterday’s “moderate turnover was evidence of a cautious mentality before the long holiday,” Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期顧問) analyst Boryi Chien (簡伯儀) said. Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$471 million of shares on the main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
STOCK MARKETS
Posiflex trading to halt
Trading of Posiflex Technology Inc (振樺電子) shares is to be halted from today pending the release of information by the company, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. Posiflex, a Taiwan-based point-of-sale terminal brand, is to hold a news conference at 3pm today at the stock exchange. The company reported NT$8.09 billion in revenue for last year, down 16.99 percent from NT$9.75 billion in 2019. Net profit in the first three quarters of last year was NT$80.89 million, down 78 percent from the same period the previous year, due mainly to foreign exchange losses of NT$40 million. That translated into earnings per share of NT$1.08, company data showed. Posiflex shares rose 1.44 percent yesterday to close at NT$77.7. They have dropped 2.51 percent so far this year.
INTERNET
Online vendor arrested
An online vendor of tech gadgets was arrested in Taoyuan last month for allegedly swindling people by offering cheap iPhone 12s, but not delivering the phones, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said yesterday. The 28-year-old suspect was advertising the latest iPhones at NT$5,000 to NT$10,000 below the average retail price, and after making a few sales to earn trust, stopped deliveries, 2nd Investigation Corp Deputy Chief Lee Ming-tao (李明道) said. In one case of collective buying, the suspect allegedly defrauded people out of NT$2.8 million, Lee said. Police arrested the man at his home in Taoyuan on Wednesday last week, he said, adding that the sales had yielded an estimated NT$10 million. The suspect has been released on NT$20,000 bail and the case handed over to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, police said.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai touts childcare
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its 6,000 employees in Taiwan have had 1,052 babies since the company boosted childcare payments early last year. On Monday, Hon Hai unveiled an expanded childcare subsidy program in which the company pays NT$15,000 per month for each child aged under seven of an employee. The incentive is an expansion of a previous program that covered children up to three years old. Hon Hai first introduced a child subsidy in 2015 to encourage employees to have babies because the birthrate in Taiwan is falling. Under the latest conditions of the program, NT$1.26 million is paid per child by the time they turn seven, the company said.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
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BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
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