EQUITIES
Foreigners sell NT$47.97bn
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$47.97 billion (US$1.73 billion) of local shares after buying a net NT$42.43 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had bought NT$24.42 billion of local shares from the beginning of this year, it said. Last week, the top three shares that foreign investors sold were AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), Innolux Corp (群創) and Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), while the top three bought were Wistron Corp (緯創), China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) and Gold Circuit Electronics Ltd (金像電子), the exchange said. As of Friday, the market cap of shares held by foreign investors was NT$24.37 trillion, or 43.93 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Firms tighten virus rules
Contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) yesterday tightened its workplace rules again due to an outbreak of COVID-19 in Taoyuan and Hsinchu County, asking employees to work from home and halt all unessential domestic and overseas business travel. United Microelectronics Co (聯電) also switched to having staff work from home. Separately, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) said its subsidiary Ingrasys Technology Inc (鴻佰科技) would suspend operations in Taoyuan’s Farglory Free Trade Zone (遠雄自由貿易港區) after recording another 17 COVID-19 cases on Sunday. The incident would not have any significant effect on the company’s business, Hon Hai said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
STEELMAKERS
China Steel profits jump
China Steel Corp (中鋼) yesterday reported that its preliminary pretax profit for the past year surged 2,949 percent annually to NT$84.41 billion, from NT$2.77 billion, while its revenue rose 49 percent annually to NT$468.33 billion. The figures came as the company reported that its pretax profit for last month fell 24 percent from a month earlier to NT$5.96 billion, with revenue dropping 9 percent from November to NT$40.99 billion. The company said it sold a total of 9.56 million tonnes of carbon steel in the past year, of which 70 percent was sold domestically, as it benefited from a recovery in the steel market. As international steel prices have recently shown signs of stabilizing, market demand is expected to increase after the Lunar New Year holiday and the peak season is likely to begin in the second quarter, it said.
EQUITIES
CTBC to launch new ETF
CTBC Battery and Energy Storage Technology exchange-traded fund (ETF) beneficiary certificates are to debut on the main board today, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said yesterday. The new ETF is issued by CTBC Investments Co (中國信託投信) and its underlying index is the ICE Factset Battery and Energy Storage Technology Index, the exchange said in a news release. The ICE index is compiled and maintained by ICE Data Indices LLC to track the performance of companies that manufacture batteries, as well as related metal and chemical materials, technologies and storage equipment in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and the US, the exchange said. The index is comprised of 30 stocks, it said. Including the new ETF, there are 131 listed ETFs, tracking domestic and international exchanges’ equity, bond, commodity and other investment tools to meet investors’ diverse appetites and asset allocation purposes, the exchange said.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts