AUTOMAKERS
Nissan triples profit forecast
Nissan Motor Co yesterday tripled its full-year net profit forecast, as it rebounded from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with a strong quarterly performance, saying it expected to withstand challenges, including the global chip crunch and rising raw material prices. The company now projects ¥180 billion (US$1.6 billion) in net profit for the fiscal year ending March next year, up from an earlier estimate of ¥60 billion. For the three months to September, Nissan logged a ¥54.1 billion net profit, reversing a ¥44.4 billion net loss for the same period last year.
ENVIRONMENT
Greenpeace sues VW
Environmental campaigner Clara Mayer and the heads of Greenpeace Germany have sued Volkswagen AG (VW) in German court, the non-governmental organization said yesterday, accusing the automaker of failing to do its part to combat climate change. The claimants had given Volkswagen eight weeks to consider their demands, which included ending production of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2030 and reducing carbon emissions by at least 65 percent from 2018 levels by then, before filing the suit. Volkswagen had said that it did not view suing individual firms as an adequate solution for tackling a society-wide issue.
FINANCE
Robinhood reveals breach
Robinhood Markets Inc on Monday announced an embarrassing security breach that exposed the personal information of millions of its users, which would be of particular concern to the 300 or so customers who suffered the worst privacy compromise. Most of the 7 million affected accounts had only one piece of personal information exposed: either the user’s name or their e-mail address, the financial services company said. However, in about 310 cases, more sensitive data, such as date of birth and zip code, were uncovered, as well as the user’s full name. About 10 of those people had “more extensive account details revealed,” Robinhood said, adding that it is in the process of “making appropriate disclosures” to those users.
SAUDI ARABIA
GDP up 6.8% on oil prices
The economy grew at its fastest pace in nearly a decade in the third quarter, boosted by higher oil prices, preliminary estimates from the government showed yesterday. GDP expanded 6.8 percent compared with the same quarter last year, the General Authority for Statistics said, its fastest pace since 2012. The economy grew 5.8 percent compared with the previous three months. The oil sector grew 9 percent year-on-year, while the non-oil economy — the engine of job creation — expanded 6.2 percent. The IMF is expecting the nation’s economic growth to average about 2.8 percent this year, following a 4.1 percent contraction last year.
UNITED STATES
Inflation concern hits record
Inflation expectations among US consumers rose to a new high for the coming year after months of soaring prices, the latest Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey showed. Household expectations for inflation in the next 12 months climbed to 5.7 percent last month from 5.3 percent the previous month, according to the monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations published on Monday. Median expected inflation over the next three years held steady at 4.2 percent. Both figures are the highest since the survey began in 2013.
SPECULATION: The central bank cut the loan-to-value ratio for mortgages on second homes by 10 percent and denied grace periods to prevent a real-estate bubble The central bank’s board members in September agreed to tighten lending terms to induce a soft landing in the housing market, although some raised doubts that they would achieve the intended effect, the meeting’s minutes released yesterday showed. The central bank on Sept. 18 introduced harsher loan restrictions for mortgages across Taiwan in the hope of curbing housing speculation and hoarding that could create a bubble and threaten the financial system’s stability. Toward the aim, it cut the loan-to-value ratio by 10 percent for second and subsequent home mortgages and denied grace periods for first mortgages if applicants already owned other residential
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip assembly and testing manufacturing (ATM) service provider, expects to double its leading-edge advanced technology services revenue next year to more than US$1 billion, benefiting from strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, a company executive said on Thursday. That would be the second year that ASE has doubled its advanced chip packaging and testing technology revenue, following an estimate of more than US$500 million for this year. ASE is one of the major beneficiaries from the AI boom as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is outsourcing production of advanced chip
TECHNOLOGY EXIT: The selling of Apple stock might be related to the death of Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger last year, an analyst said Billionaire Warren Buffett is now sitting on more than US$325 billion in cash after continuing to unload billions of US dollars worth of Apple Inc and Bank of America Corp shares this year and continuing to collect a steady stream of profits from all of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s assorted businesses without finding any major acquisitions. Berkshire on Saturday said it sold off about 100 million more Apple shares in the third quarter after halving its massive investment in the iPhone maker the previous quarter. The remaining stake of about 300 million shares was valued at US$69.9 billion at the end of