A rout in the local stock market before it stabilized yesterday pushed margin debt down to NT$236.63 billion (US$8.45 billion) on Thursday, the lowest since NT$236.1 billion on April 7, and the figure is expected to drop further next week, Taishin Securities Investment Advisory Co (台新投顧) general manager Mason Li (李鎮宇) said yesterday.
Rising domestic COVID-19 infections would take a toll on local stocks, forcing more investors to face margin calls by their brokers, Li said by telephone.
“The viral spread continues to be the largest risk for the local stock market, as stricter measures against COVID-19 would hurt private consumption,” he said.
Photo: CNA
The TAIEX closed up 1 percent on 15,827.09 points yesterday, with market turnover of NT$510.512 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$13.66 billion of shares on the main board.
While the market staged a technical rebound, heavy plunges over the previous three sessions had forced brokers to sell shares held by investors trading on margin, but failing to cover losses in their stock accounts.
The forced selling drove margin debt down by NT$12.7 billion on Tuesday, NT$12.9 billion on Wednesday and NT$8 billion on Thursday, the data showed.
Thursday’s NT$236.6 billion was up 26.3 percent from NT$187.3 billion at the end of last year, but down by 14 percent from a nine-year high of NT$274 billion on April 29, the data showed.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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