EQUITIES
TAIEX falls 313.27 points
The TAIEX yesterday fell more than 300 points, after concerns over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine drove heavy losses on US markets at the end of last week. Selling occurred across the board, with investors dumping liquid large cap tech stocks in the bellwether electronics sector, in particular in the semiconductor industry, pushing the main board below 18,000 points. The TAIEX closed down 313.27 points, or 1.71 percent, at 17,997.67. The electronics sector led the downturn, falling 2.19 percent, with the semiconductor subindex down 2.30 percent. Turnover on the main board totaled NT$259.44 billion (US$9.31 billion), with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$20.67 billion of shares, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
EQUITIES
Foreigners invest NT$15.5bn
Foreign investors last week bought a net NT$15.5 billion of local shares in the first week after the Lunar New Year holiday, compared with a net NT$62.08 billion of shares sold prior to the week-long holiday, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$22.17 billion of local shares from the beginning of this year, it said. Last week, the top three shares that foreign investors bought were EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子) and CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控), while the top three sold were United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Innolux Corp (群創) and Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), the exchange said. As of Friday, the market cap of shares held by foreign investors was NT$24.8 trillion, or 43.72 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
UMC halts some production
Contract chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) yesterday said that operations at its subsidiary in Suzhou, China, have been partially suspended after a factory worker tested positive for COVID-19. UMC said in statement that it would gradually suspend production at the unit run by HeJian Technology (Suzhou) Co (和艦科技) to assist local authorities in screening all workers for COVID-19, after which full operations would resume. UMC said it remained upbeat about its first-quarter sales despite the incident, given that HeJian’s monthly production only accounted for about 5 percent of the company’s total revenue. UMC also predicted that its first-quarter shipments would remain stable, and that product prices and gross margin would also rise.
PLASTICS
FPG posts mixed results
The four major subsidiaries of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) yesterday posted mixed revenue results for last month, as rising global crude oil prices boosted sales at Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC, 台塑石化) and Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), while the Lunar New Year holiday and low seasonal demand dragged down sales at Formosa Plastics Corp (FPC, 台灣塑膠) and Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (FCFC, 台灣化學纖維). FPCC reported that revenue increased 5.7 percent month-on-month to NT$64.42 billion as revenue from its refining business increased 4.5 percent and naphtha cracking grew 15.7 percent. Nan Ya’s revenue rose 2.1 percent to NT$35.27 billion, but FPC’s sales declined 5 percent to NT$23.93 billion, while FCFC registered a 3.1 percent revenue drop to NT$30.31 billion.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS