EQUITIES
Foreigners buy NT$30.78bn
Foreign investors last week bought a net NT$30.78 billion (US$1.11 billion) of local shares after buying a net NT$30.69 billion the previous week, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold an accumulated NT$479.48 billion of local shares since the beginning of the year, it said. Last week, the top three shares bought by foreign investors were Tatung Co (大同), Innolux Corp (群創) and AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), while the top three sold were China Steel Corp (中鋼), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦) and Taiwan Business Bank (台灣企銀), the exchange said. As of Friday last week, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$24.05 trillion, or 43.93 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
Appier starts hiring push
Artificial intelligence (AI) solution provider Appier Inc (沛星互動科技) has launched a campaign to recruit about 100 employees in a wide range of areas, including software engineering, product management, data science, analysis and marketing. In a statement released on Friday, Appier said it would hold recruitment events on university campuses to familiarize student applicants with the company’s culture and work requirements. By expanding its employment size, the company is determined to continue contributing to Taiwan’s industrial transformation, technology upgrades and talent cultivation, Appier said. The company offers a platform to facilitate real-time bidding and programmatic media buying, while providing AI, data and cross-screen targeting solutions.
BANKING
Standard offers US$2bn SLL
Standard Chartered Bank (Taiwan) Ltd (渣打國際商業銀行) is to offer a sustainability-linked loan (SLL) of US$2 billion to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the largest such loan in Taiwan and the biggest the bank has ever provided, it said on Thursday. Standard Chartered said it would cut the lending rates if TSMC has a good sustainability performance such as by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, and water and air pollution, as well as increase its use of renewable energy. DBS Bank Taiwan (星展台灣) on Thursday also announced it would offer an SLL of 1 billion euros (US$1.13 billion) to TSMC. The lender said it would evaluate whether to cut the lending rates based on TSMC’s performance in green manufacturing, workplace progress, supply chain responsibility, talent cultivation and treatment of minorities, it said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
PharmaEssentia drug cleared
PharmaEssentia Corp (藥華醫藥) received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for a new drug to treat adults with a rare blood disease, the company said last week. The agency on Nov. 13 approved the drug Besremi (ropeginterferon alfa-2b-njft, P1101) to treat polycythemia vera, a blood cancer that causes the overproduction of red blood cells, the company said. The approval would allow PharmaEssentia to venture into the US market, and the company is preparing to make Besremi available to distributors in the US in the next three to four weeks, it said. The drug had already received orphan drug designation for the treatment of polycythemia vera in the US, the company said. With the FDA approval, PharmaEssentia would have seven years of orphan drug exclusivity in the US market, it added. P1101 has been approved in Taiwan, the EU, Israel, South Korea and Switzerland, the company said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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